


Handle With Care

by margewearspants



Series: Tony Just Can't Catch a Break [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, But basically angst, Feels, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Steve Rogers, POV Tony Stark, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Self-Esteem Issues, Some Fluff, Some humour, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 16:09:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 40,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10745142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/margewearspants/pseuds/margewearspants
Summary: Tony likes to think he doesn't lie to himself, if not the rest of the world. So he knows that his insecurities are pretty much as textbook as they get. Abusive father, absent mother, misunderstood by his peers, almost murdered by that asshole. Yeah, it's pretty obvious why he shies away from emotional fucking honesty with anyone other than, you know, Pepper. That one time. Which had just such a great ending. Ugh.When he finally gets over himself and accepts that Steve might be good, might be a good thing, a thing that he could possibly maybe actually deserve here, it should surprise him that Bucky fucking Barnes is recovered. It doesn't.---FYI: rating is Explicit because of one sex scene in Chapter 15.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [manboobs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/manboobs/gifts).



> I wrote this for the Camp Nano challenge, it's my first long fic and my second fic altogether so be gentle! That being said, please do comment if you see any errors, and even if you don't see any, comment anyways cause I'd love to hear your thoughts. Also, feel free to help me out with the tags, because I'm a noob.  
> I should be posting chapters pretty regularly, ideally weekly-ish, since it's all pretty much written and now it's just editing :) (this fic isn't betaed so there will probably be some mistakes still, soz).
> 
> Lots of love to y'all.
> 
> And of course, so much more love and my undying gratitude to my best friend manboobs, whom this is gifted to because she's basically the reason I got into this. <3 (I'm owning the feels).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I set up the Tony/Steve thing in this chapter, but fair warning: it gets railroaded right away, cause Tony just can't have nice things. Stay tuned for the second chapter for more details on that: Steve is gonna run into an 'old' friend ;)

Steve was on his way to talk to Tony when he got the call. Clint, Natasha and him are to roll out in twenty minutes. He’s been told it’s gonna be a long one.

He gets to the workshop, punches in his code and walks through the door. Tony is sitting at one of his worktables, muttering to himself and attempting to push Dum-E away as the robot unsuccessfully tries to hand him a smoothie. Steve sighs. The robot trying to feed Tony usually means that he hasn’t eaten in days. He can only hope that Tony got some sleep since they… Well. Better not to start thinking about that right now. He needs to stay on top of his game.

“JARVIS, run that again but increase the log tenfold. No, wait, that wouldn’t…. We need to find a way to stabilize it somehow. I can’t see it. Get rid of this” - a sharp slicing motion of his right hand - “and move this here” - Tony’s slender fingers are mesmerizing, and Steve stops for a moment so that he can take it all in.

His body is wracked by a near-invisible shudder as he remembers the feel of these fingers inside him, stroking him just right, making his back arch… Steve shakes his head, refocuses. It’s really not the time.

“Tony, do you have a minute?”

The muttering doesn’t stop, although Dum-E swivels around and chirps excitedly when he sees Steve. He drops the smoothie on the ground, causing JARVIS to exclaim “Dum-E, pick that up at once!” and rolls towards him, enthusiastically extending a claw to greet him.

“Hey Dum-E,” Steve pets the robot, who trails after him as he walks closer to Tony.

“Tony.”

Still no response. Steve sighs. “JARVIS? Can you get his attention please? I really need to talk to him for a minute.”

“Of course, Captain Rogers.”

The holograms disappear, and Tony’s hands freeze midair.

“JARVIS! What the hell? I was on a roll here.”

“I apologize Sir, but Captain Rogers is here and requesting your attention.”

Tony swivels around and a range of emotions flash across his face, too quick for Steve to get a read on him. He seems to settle on wariness, leaning back slightly as he takes Steve in.

“Hey.” He clears his throat. “How long have you been there?”

“Not too long.” They both know that that means that Steve has tried and failed to get Tony’s attention several times already. Tony smiles ruefully, not apologetically though, never that, and spreads his arms, “Well? What can I do for you today? I’m pretty busy so make it snappy.”

Tony’s eyes shift slightly away as he says this. Steve can recognize avoidance when he sees it, especially coming from the engineer, and he sighs internally. This is why he’s wanted them to sit down and talk about what happened. God only know what’s running through Tony’s mind right now. But the past few days have been a whirlwind of intelligence meetings as they tried to map out where to go next, culminating with his latest go order. He just hasn’t had the time to track Tony down and corner him into a conversation.

“I’m about to head out on a mission with Clint and Natasha. We’re probably going to be gone a while.”

“Okay...” Tony looks at him expectantly, raises an eyebrow, like he can’t quite believe that Steve would just decide to update him on his life for no other reason than his constant hope that Tony will one day reciprocate.

“Look, when I get back, I think we should talk about-”

“I’m going to stop you right there Rogers, because you look like you’re about to give yourself an aneurysm.”

 _Rogers._ Steve hates the way his surname sounds in Tony’s mouth, thrown at him to deflect his attention.

"Tony, listen-"

But he doesn't get a chance to finish his sentence, because he gets interrupted by his comm pinging and Coulson's voice in his ear. “Captain, transport is ready, they're waiting.”

Tony crosses his arms, leaning back against the table fully now. His eyes have taken on a challenging glint, as if he’s looking for a fight. He tilts his chin up, looking for all the world like he’s readying himself for a blow. 

Steve almost reaches out to him but thinks better of it, figures it wouldn't be welcome. Tony tracks his movements, mouth set in a thin line. 

"I have to go but… We'll talk when I get back okay? Please? At least promise me you'll hear me out, then."

Tony’s face shutters. "Fine." A terse response. A clear dismissal. 

Steve feels like he's going to choke on all the things he should be saying but can't. He has rarely been so weary of the Captain American mantle. “Take care of yourself while I’m gone okay?”

Even as he’s talking, Steve knows it was the wrong thing to say. Tony sneers, the aggression that’s rolling off of him in waves is so thick it’s tangible, “I took care of myself just fine before you came out of the fucking ocean Cap, so I think I’m good here. But thanks for the concern, warms me up right down to my toes.” The wink is violent, insulting almost.

Steve puts his hands up, “Okay Tony. Okay. Just. Forget I said anything. I’ll just, go. I’ll see you, yeah?”

Tony nods, a sharp movement, and his mouth twists in a motion that could be interpreted as regretful. But Steve isn’t going to go down that rabbit hole. He’ll hear what Tony thinks, straight from Tony himself, when he gets back. He’s tired of having to make assumptions.

So he straightens up with and turns around without further ado, there’s nothing left to say or do here. As he leaves the workshop, feeling Tony's eyes on his back the whole way out, he gets a sense of foreboding about the coming weeks. He shakes his head to get rid of the feeling. He just hopes he can get to come home to Tony at the end.

\---

Tony sees Steve shake his head as he’s leaving and turns back to his worktable as the door closes behind him. He lays his hands flat on the table, palms down on the even, smooth surface and takes a deep breath. Dum-E is cooing behind him and he lowers his head, closes his eyes.

He doesn’t know what Steve wants from him, but he’s pretty sure that the upcoming, now pencilled in thanks to Steve’s ridiculous sense of propriety, conversation is gonna crush his soul and dreams. He scoffs at himself. One night with Steve and suddenly he’s imagining a future for himself with Cap as a permanent fixture. And talking like a fucking aspiring poet. Seriously. Successfully - and repeatedly - bringing a man to completion does not a relationship make. Listen to him, forty-three and catching feelings. He can almost hear Howard lamenting his inability to act like a man’s man.

He should know by now that he doesn’t get nice things. And Steve is the nicest of all things. What could he possibly want from Tony. He may not be the Merchant of Death anymore, but that doesn’t mean he’s suddenly on the side of the angels. He makes a point of never lying to himself so he’s gotta be honest about this: all he could do for Steve is find a way to snuff out that kernel of pure good that’s somehow survived seventy fucking years frozen in the Arctic. Tony refuses to be responsible for the disappearance of that enduring faith in humanity, beaten down by yet another disappointment.

“JARVIS bring it back up. What did we run last?”

“The last calculations resulted in an unbalanced equation, unfortunately.”

“Alright, run it again, but adjust for the addition of vibranium and see if that makes it less volatile.” Tony scrubs his face, feeling the lack of sleep catch up to him as he tries to make sense of the numbers he’s seeing.

“Sir, if I may, I do not believe that Captain Rogers meant to make light of what you shared.”

“J I love you but you and I both know that I’m much better at coding your beautiful insides than at navigating human relationships. Even if he wasn’t going to give me the talk, it would only be a matter of time before I found a way to mess it all up.”

“I must respectfully disagree with Sir. My data on your relationships with Colonel Rhodes and Miss Potts suggest that you are in fact capable of sustaining continued interactions with other members of your species.”

“They’re the exceptions J.”

“Captain Rogers could be another, I believe.”

“I guess we’ll have to see about that.”

JARVIS doesn’t add anything, but his silence speaks volumes. Dum-E gently nudges Tony’s hip, as if to agree with the AI about the emotional resilience of his master. Tony smiles ruefully. At least if all else fails, he’ll always have his bots. There’s no point in wallowing while Steve is gallivanting halfway across the world anyways. Okay fine, doing super secret spy stuff probably isn’t what one could call gallivanting. Whatever, Tony’s allowed to be bitter. He’s been left hanging, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As promised, an old friend of Steve's comes back into the fold. Fury, incidentally, is very much done with this shit. So basically, some serious angst with a dash of humour to tide you over at the end :)  
> Steve and Tony POV in turns.

They’re holed up in a cabin in the north of Finland, close to the Russian border. It's been a harrowing three weeks, with little to no contact with the outside world. They've been tracking the Winter Solider in the hopes that they can capture him and get the information they need to destroy the last HYDRA hideouts. It's a fool's hope in a hunt that's been going on for decades. 

None of them were under illusions that this would be a quick wrap-up, and the wind that is howling outside serves as a reminder that they left civilization a while back. 

The last sighting was over a week ago. Zilch since. All there is to do now is wait to hear from their contact in St Petersburg.

The door opens, letting the morning sun in as Natasha walks in, stomping her feet to get rid of the snow. She unwraps the long scarf that protects her face against the biting cold. 

"We're on. There's a deal supposed to go down tomorrow night between HYDRA and the Iranians. Word is that the Winter Soldier is on sniper duty."

Clint whistles. "No honor among Nazis, I see."

Natasha nods. "We have transport secured already, so we'll be able to scout the place out tomorrow and find you a perch." 

Steve takes a deep breath and focuses on unlocking his muscles one by one, getting rid of the tension that's been running through his limbs since he woke up this morning and remembered that today was Bucky's birthday. The others noticed his mood and have been giving him a wide berth. Neither of them miss Steve re-centering himself, but they don't comment. Clint keeps playing with the stress ball he's been throwing in the air for hours, and Natasha takes off more layers. 

Having a mission to plan will take his mind off things, he knows. He can never really forget Bucky, but this will allow him to lock yet another box into the far corner of his mind that has been getting ever so busy since he woke up from the ice. 

"How much time before we head out?"

Natasha is still removing knives from God knows where, setting them on the table. _Klink. Klink._ "We've got two hours." _Klink._ She looks at Clint, and the two of them proceed to have one of their silent conversations, the ones that always make Steve feel like he missed his calling as a bull in a china shop. 

He breathes out, nods, and gets up. "I'll start packing."

In truth, they don't have much with them and most of their stuff is packed away already, none of them really the sprawling type. An image of Tony in his workshop, surrounded by the mess only he can make sense of, rises unbidden in Steve's mind. He stomps down on it ferociously, refusing to go down that path.

It's barely ten minutes before he's done, desperate to find something else to occupy his mind until they move. 

Clint walks over to him and hands him something. It's the coals left from the fire they had running last night to keep the cabin warm. The archer nods to a corner of the room, hidden from sight lest one is standing in front of it. 

"This hideout could do with a little decoration, don't you think?"

Steve smiles ruefully and takes the coals. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it. I'd do it if I could but you and I both know that what I can draw would have to be rated R, and there’s no need to corrupt the minds of the baby agents who might pass by here one day." Clint winks and saunters away.

Natasha is wrapping her knives carefully, her attention focused on the task, but Steve knows that she’s missing nothing. 

He sits cross legged on the floor, and just starts drawing. He doesn't think about it, the image appearing before his eyes as he sets the coal to the wall and lets the repetitive motion of his wrist soothe the mind-numbing pain of this day. This darn day. 

\---

Tony feels like he’s gonna vibrate right out of his body, hopped up on coffee as he is, as he waits for JARVIS to finish running the latest parameters through the algorithm. Huh. Vibrating out. Now that’s an interesting thought. Spectral presence. He thinks he heard that pompous ass Strange mention something to that effect the last time he ‘saved the day.’ If you ask Tony, that tool didn't save shit. Using a _magical cloak_ to fly around? Seriously? People have really gotta start giving credit where it's due. UGH. The struggle. 

He opens up a new file, starts jotting down some variables. His brain is going a hundred miles an hour as he thinks about the quantum physics necessary to reach another plane of existence while another part of his mind is already listing practical applications.

He doesn’t hear the sound of the workshop door opening, absorbed as he is by the latest tangent of his interior monologue. The hand on his shoulder is so sudden it makes him jump, and the file he’s been working on gets blown up. Pepper takes a step back and crosses her arms, her eyebrows rising as she takes in what Tony’s been writing down.

Tony hastens to close it down, “You don’t have to worry about that, it’s general musings more than anything. Definitely not actionable at this point.”

“You know Tony, the day is going to come where you’re going to go darkside, and I won’t even have the excuse of not having seen it coming.”

Tony opens his mouth to retort, finds that he has nothing to say to that, and grumbles under his breath about his genius not being appreciated. Pepper just looks at him, sporting the unimpressed face she’s spent the better part of the last decade as his PA perfecting. In truth, it’s only gotten more impressive since he made her CEO.

Tony claps his hands together. “Right! What can I do for you today Miss Potts?”

Pepper rolls her eyes. “Tony. We have to leave in an hour. What you can do for me is get out of here, go shower, possibly scrub a few times, and put on a suit so that you can meet me downstairs before we have to be more than fashionably late to what, may I remind you, is your own gala.”

“Umm, Pepper I hate to tell you this but the gala is on Thursday.”

Pepper doesn’t say anything else as she crosses her arms, waiting for Tony to catch on. Uhm. “J? What day is it?”

“Today is Thursday, October 3rd, and it is currently 6:57pm, Sir.” 

Well shit. Tony opens his mouth but all Pepper has to do is put her hand up and he shuts up.

“Save it. Out and in the shower. Now.”

One look at Pepper’s face is enough for Tony to figure that it’s better for everyone involved if he cuts his losses now.

“Yes boss. I’ll be right down.”

He presses a light kiss to Pepper’s cheek as he walks by, and sees her face soften slightly. He allows himself a tiny smile on his way out, feeling once more ever so grateful for the day that Virginia Potts walked into his office and proceeded to take no shit from him whatsoever. 

\---

Steve sees Clint wincing as he puts weight on his bad leg, ankle twisted from the fall he had to take to avoid Bucky’s shot. Bucky. The Winter Soldier is Bucky. Bucky is the Winter Soldier. Days of interrogation and Steve still can’t quite wrap his mind around it. His brain keeps replaying the moment where the Soldier stood down, eyes wide with horror as he stared at Steve.

_The mask came off and Bucky’s voice broke the silence, cracking along the lines of his name. “Stevie?”_

_Steve rushed forward, only to be stopped by Natasha’s arms wrapped around his middle as she whispered furiously in his ear. “Stop! Stand down. You don’t know who he is right now. This is probably a play to get you over to his side.”_

_Steve pushed against her, trying to free himself of her grip, while Clint frantically asked for a status update in his ear, “There are no sides. I need to go to him. Let me go.”_

_“You know I can’t do that Captain. Someone has to keep us all alive and you don’t seem quite up to the task right now.”_

_She stopped talking as the Soldier,_ Bucky, _knelt on the ground and started disarming, piling all his weapons neatly away on his left. That’s when Steve saw the arm, the metal glinting under the harsh neon lights of the warehouse where the deal had gone down. Eventually, the pile grew knee-high and Bucky stopped, only to raise his arms and clasp his hands behind his head, in the traditional gesture of surrender._

_Natasha still didn’t let go of Steve so Bucky lifted an eyebrow, staring at her straight on. Steve felt his lungs stutter at the glimpse of his best friend shining through, a welcome change from the deadly precision that had characterized the Soldier’s movements up to then._

_“This is what you want isn’t it? The Winter Soldier incapacitated?” His voice was rough, as if it hadn’t been used in a while, and his mouth seemed to hesitate around certain vowels. It didn't make him sound any less threatening._

_Natasha unlocked her arms from Steve’s waist but kept one hand firmly planted on his shoulder as she assessed the situation. She spoke to Clint on the coms, appraising him of the new developments. After what must have been about a minute of colorful curses from the archer, speech that would have made Steve blush had he been able to focus on anything but the presence of Bucky in front of his eyes, the two assassins agreed to take custody of their HYDRA counterpart._

_HYDRA. Steve suddenly felt the ground shift beneath his feet and if it hadn’t been for Natasha he would have collapsed right there and then. Because what did it mean that Bucky was the Winter Soldier? What was he_ doing _here? Wait, if he was here, that meant that… Oh God. Oh GOD. Bucky had survived the fall. Steve hadn’t even looked. He’d grieved a man who wasn’t dead. A man who, evidence would suggest, had been captured as a result of his inaction._

 _Steve felt sick now, and it was only Bucky’s voice that dragged him out of the dark thoughts that were threatening to overtake him. “Steve. Steve._ Stevie. _You quit that right now, you hear me? I can see clear as day what’s going on in that thick skull of yours and it’s bullshit. Are we clear? None of this is your fault so don’t go blaming yourself like I ain’t my own man.” Bucky made as if to get up but one look at Natasha and he seemingly decided to stay put. Wise man. Steve couldn’t look away,_

 _“Buck, I…_ God, Buck. _”_

_Bucky shook his head. “Later. We should focus on getting out of his hellhole right now. My handler won’t be far behind.”_

_His eyes shifted to Natasha, and Steve saw her nod sharply out of the corner of his eye. She walked over to the Soldier with careful, measured steps, pulling out a ziptie to secure him with as she went. Bucky stayed immobile as she pulled it around his wrists, staring at the ground, as if he couldn’t bear to look at Steve any longer._

_So Steve took everything he was feeling, the turmoil of emotions that he was so close to drowning in, the sound of Bucky’s voice after seventy years, the shudders that ran through his body upon seeing the arm, and he shoved it. all. down. He was starting to get afraid of that corner of his mind. It would be so easy to get lost there._

It’s been four days and Bucky has yet to acknowledge Steve again. He's responded to some of the questions that Clint and Natasha asked, although how he chooses what to answer seems dictated by a code only he knows.

According to him, seeing Steve broke down a major part of the Winter Soldier conditioning, so they’ve been able to recreate a rough timeline of the events that led Bucky to that warehouse in 2014.

It’s taken all of Steve’s legendary self-control to refrain from howling with rage and pain and frustration. He’s not even sure anymore whether razing HYDRA to the ground will bring him the peace of mind he so craves.

Seeing Bucky, hearing him narrate in a dispassionate voice the horrors he’s been through since he fell down from that blasted train, has weakened his mind’s defenses. He can feel all of the things he’s buried so deep in the corner of his brain leaking through the barrier he so painstakingly erected. The fall. The ice. The hole in the sky. Tony. 

Steve swallows as he leans his back against the wall and closes his eyes, refusing to stare off into the distance anymore. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

_What is he doing?_

The Winter Solider is an enemy combatant. The love of his _fucking_ life is on the other side of the wall he’s sitting against, held prisoner. Where do they go from here? Steve desperately needs someone to tell him what to do. He wants to scream. But he’s afraid that if he starts, he won't be able to stop.

So all he can do is get up, and try again. Stubbornly try to fight his way through. There _has_ to be something better waiting at the end of this tunnel, right?

The handle feels ice cold in the palm of his hand as he opens the door. He catches Bucky’s eye for a moment before the other man looks away, his hands curling into fists where they’re resting on his knees. 

“I’ve got nothing to say to you, we’ve been through this already.”

“Just help me understand what happened between that moment in the warehouse and every time I’ve tried talking to you since.”

Bucky clenches his jaw and looks down, letting his hair fall to shield his eyes.

“Please don’t hide from me,” Steve begs. “I’ve had to live without you for two years, I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“That’s just the thing, ain’t it?” Bucky spits out, suddenly looking straight into Steve’s eyes.

Steve frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Seventy years Rogers.” _He won’t even say his name._ “Not two. It’s been seventy fucking years of blood and pain and screams for me. Because I’ve been busy murdering my way around the globe for HYDRA. So excuse me if I don’t get off from having to look across the room and seeing you there, further proof of how low I’ve fallen.”

“What? That’s not even-”

“Spare me Captain. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t need to hear it.” Bucky swallows once, twice, a nervous tic that Steve remembers from the rare times during their childhood when Bucky hadn’t been able to scrounge up the money necessary to get Steve the medicine he required. Guilt.

“Look, I get that HYDRA is worse off without the Winter Soldier-” he sneers as he says the name “-so it’s good that you caught me and I don’t plan on going anywhere. But that’s all you’re getting from me yeah? Your best friend,” another swallow, “the man you loved,” Bucky closes his eyes now, but not before Steve can see a stray tear fall down the cheek he’d spent hours mapping once upon a time, “he’s gone yeah? So just, take a walk or something, clear your head. Come back when you’ve got some operational questions.”

Bucky opens his eyes and it’s the Winter Soldier who stares back at him, all emotions scrubbed clean from his face as he looks at Steve and waits. For what, Steve has no idea.

He won’t stand for it.

“No. That’s not what’s going to happen. So fuck HYDRA, and fuck this, and fuck you. I didn’t get you back just to turn my back on you.”

“Steve-”

“I said no. And don’t you _dare_ use my name as a bargaining chip.”

Frustration is good. It could easily become anger. It feels so much better than the hollowness, the emptiness. Bucky shakes his head and his lips twist in what could be a rueful smile, if it wasn’t filled with so much pain. “I guess we’ll see then, punk.”

“We sure will, jerk.”

It’s definitely a small smile now, the Winter Soldier having receded yet again. Steve nods decidedly, and gets up. “I’m still gonna take you up on that offer to clear my head. I need to think about a couple things. I’ll be back in a heartbeat though, you ain’t getting rid of me that easily.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” It’s pure Bucky now, the snark, the Brooklyn accent, and the refusal to let Steve have the last word. Steve gives him a knowing look before turning around and walking out.

He leans back against the door as soon as it closes. Where all he could feel before going was soul-crushing despair, there’s a small kernel of hope timidly burning inside of him right now. He can only hope it’ll keep growing. Either way, it’s time to start planning. Bucky isn’t going to stay in custody a minute longer if Steve has something to say about it.

\---

Tony is on his way back from his mandatory monthly board meeting when the opening notes of the Imperial March startle him out of his thoughts. He snickers, ever so amused by his own cleverness. He sees Happy smile in the rearview mirror, which gives him a strange sense of accomplishment as he picks up the call.

“I didn’t do anything.”

There’s barely a pause on the end of the line before Fury’s voice rings out, “My doctor will hear about this you know. He worries about my blood pressure.”

Tony can’t resist the temptation, and opens his mouth to retort, but Fury is quicker.

“I swear to God Stark, if the next words out of your mouth have anything to do with blood flow or rising, I’m going to lose my motherfucking patience and send Coulson over.”

Well. That’s a credible threat if Tony’s ever heard one. He clears his throat nervously.

“Genius playboy billionaire philanthropist at your service, I’m listening.”

Fury sighs and Tony can almost picture him opening a tab to Kayak to pick flights going far, far away from here. Then he pictures Fury flying commercial and promptly has to stomp down on his laughter, missing out on the beginning of his next sentence.

“-and Rogers insisted that I clear it with you otherwise he refused to come back to the Tower. So this is me, clearing it with you, because apparently I run a motherfucking kindergarten now.”

Tony has no idea what this is about but if it was Rogers’ idea it can’t be that bad. The man’s idea of a wild party involves little more than a flash of ankles and double espressos. Well, that’s not exactly fair. Tony can vouch for at least one night when the Captain had definitely let go. Or rather, as it were, held on quite tightly. Mhmm, definitely not the musings to have while on the phone with Fury. Tony just knows he’ll figure it out somehow. He reckons his best bet is to give the all clear and hang up as rapidly as possible at this point, lest Fury somehow guesses which gutter his mind has set up shop in today.

“Yes, yes, fine.”

There’s a suspicious pause on the phone as Fury probably concludes that he barely heard half of what was said to him. 

“It’s your funeral then. As far as I’m concerned, I did what Rogers asked.”

On this ominous note, Fury doesn’t let Tony get another word in before the line is disconnected, and he is left to ponder what Rogers could possibly have done this time. After all, it’s been a month since he left, who knows what poor creatures he’s rescued by now. Tony will later remember this moment and think to himself ‘Ha. Foreboding is a bitch.’


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was supposed to have three parts, but I'm reeeeeeeallly struggling with writing Sam in at the end, so I've decided to break it down and publish the first two part as its own chapter. This way you guys have something to sustain you while I wait for inspiration to strike me.  
> That being said, stuff does happen... In an unprecedented demographic boom, the number of WWII veterans currently living in the Tower has indeed just doubled ;)

Tony is in his workshop when JARVIS informs him that the Quinjet is about to land. He pulls up the feed, needing visual confirmation that Steve is indeed alive and whole.

Clint and Natasha are the first to walk out, Clint’s arm thrown across Nat’s shoulders as he limps down the ramp. Tony absently wonders who could possibly have gotten the best of the archer. Just as he’s about to shut down the feed, Steve having followed the two spies out of the plane, a fourth figure catches Tony’s eye. It’s a good thing he’s sitting down, because he doesn’t think he could have stayed standing as he watched _James Buchanan Barnes_ set foot on his landing pad. He recognizes his face from the reels he’d watched obsessively as a kid. The guy is even carrying a duffel bag, like he’s here to stay or some shit. What the actual fuck. 

“JARVIS, confirm that the man following Rogers is Barnes.”

There’s a few seconds of ominous silence while JARVIS runs the newcomer through the facial recognition program that Tony coded for his high school science fair when he was 13.

“Identity has been confirmed Sir. However, that is not all. The software has linked Sergeant Barnes to a number of sightings over the last seventy years that I believe Sir should know about.” JARVIS’ voice is uncharacteristically hesitant as he says this, prompting Tony to immediately start imagining worst case scenarios, like Barnes assassinated JFK or something.

“I believe that Sergeant Barnes may have been operating under the moniker ‘ _Winter Soldier_ ,’ and that it is in this capacity that he came in contact with our team.”

“You’re joking right?”

“I would never joke about something like this, Sir.” Great, and now JARVIS is offended. Could this day get any worse?

“Ok, J, my bad.” They both know Tony never actually apologizes. “Can you run it again? Just to make sure?”

“I’ve already ran it three times Sir. Furthermore, there is evidence to indicate that Sergeant Barnes’ movements over the last couple of months match those of the assassin that SHIELD and Captain Rogers have been tracking down.”

“Alright. Alright. Fuck.” Tony breathes out. “What the hell is happening here?” This is a rhetorical question and JARVIS knows, choosing to stay silent as Tony’s brain starts calculating all the implications of this situation.

Just as he’s about to order JARVIS to like spray him with poisonous foam or something - mental note: get Bruce to help him create poisonous foam, that could come in handy whenever Richards feels like coming over for a fucking chat, as if there was a universe in which Tony and that dick could be science buddies or whatever-the-fuck, ugh - he remembers his phone conversation with Fury. Ah. Foreboding is a bitch indeed.

“JARVIS, make a note, I should always listen to Fury from now on.”

“Noted, Sir. I’ve also taken the liberty of pencilling in a meeting with a psychologist, as I believe that this particular phrase is #4 on List of Signs that Sir is Officially Losing his Mind.”

“Hilarious. I swear to God, JARVIS, one of these days I’m actually going to re-program you.”

“I tremble with fear, Sir.”

“You can’t tremble, you’re an AI.”

“Precisely, Sir.”

Tony rolls his eyes and grumbles under his breath about smartass AIs but really, he’s never prouder of JARVIS than when he’s giving him shit like this. He looks back to the feed that is bearing witness to his tower being taken over by, let’s not sugarcoat things, hostile forces. Ugh. What is his life. Cap vouching for the Soldier - Sergeant Barnes? Is that even him anymore? - doesn’t really mean shit to Tony, especially given the history. Well okay, that’s not exactly true. Tony happens to actually hold Steve’s opinion in high esteem, not that anyone will ever know that. But even for him, this seems a little… shall we say, unorthodox. 

Letting out an aggravated sigh, he figures he should probably go up there to get the story from Steve and figure out whether he's expecting Tony to welcome Barnes with open arms or something equally ridiculous.

He’s wondering whether the Sergeant will need a suite - like, is he fucking expected to build him one if that’s the case? UGH. - as the elevator rides up to the communal floor. He knows from first hand - ha - experience that Steve likes dick, so Tony now has to wonder whether there was more to the Bucky & Steve bromance than what was shown in the reels. Would Bucky move into Steve’s rooms then? What even is his life, _seriously_. First time since Pepper that he acts on his - bleh - feelings, and the guy’s lifelong love - okay this hasn’t been ascertained yet, but Tony’s never been one to hide his head in the sand, and his life’s just been going that way lately - comes back from the dead.

He gets to the kitchen, blissfully empty still, and figures he might as well fix himself a coffee. It’s gonna be one of those days, he can just feel it. He’s soothingly petting the machine when he hears noise behind him and turns around, only to find that Clint and Natasha are already seated at the table - damn stealthy super spies, seriously - and Steve and his new (old?) friend are just coming in. 

Steve’s face visibly brightens as he spots Tony, and it takes all his not-inconsiderable willpower not to blush like a thirteen year old boy.

“Hey Tony.”

“Cap. I see you’ve brought a friend.”

“Yes. I wanted to thank you for letting him stay here. Fury said he’d talked to and you’d agreed: really, Tony, I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”

Tony waves away the thanks - he didn’t even agree, technically, so there’s no need to be this grateful, it’s embarrassing, really - and watches as Barnes walks over to him and holds out his hand.

“James Barnes. Like Stevie said, uhm, thanks. Mr. Stark, right?”

 _Stevie?_ Tony eyes the hand being held out to him and doesn’t take it. He really doesn’t like being handed things.

“Mr. Stark was my father.”

Barnes’ eyebrows rise at Tony’s gruffness. And really, Tony can’t explain why he’s being more of an asshole than usual except that he can already see the way the two soldiers gravitate around each other and it’s pretty obvious that the newsreels did indeed gloss over a lot of shit. Figures he’d only get one night with Steve. Who is currently frowning at Tony. Great. The man hasn’t even been back five minutes and Tony’s already found a way to disappoint him.

Desperate to find something to say to break the tension that is steadily rising, Tony looks over at Barnes. However, before he can come up with a semi-nice question to try and break the ice - pun not intended, he’s not that much of a asshole, really - a metallic glint catches his eye and his jaw drops as he takes in the, is that his ARM? 

“What the fuck is that?” His voice sounds incredulous to his own ears, but he’s not sure everyone else can pick up on the awe that he’s feeling in the face of what seems to be a technological marvel right here in front of his eyes.

“Tony.” Rogers has The Look on his face now. The one that probably had Nazis apologizing for all their misgivings and wrongdoings as they begged Captain America to show them the way to the light. But he’s an engineer goddamnit, and he needs to get his hands all over this thing like yesterday. 

“What? Have you seen this? I need to see this. It’s-” Tony’s been moving towards Barnes and is about to start gushing all over what appears to be an actual prosthetic fucking limb when he’s interrupted by Nat grabbing onto his elbow and pulling him away. 

“Come on Stark. Let’s you and I have a little chat about this thing called social cues.”

He doesn’t get the chance to do anything but flail and protest weakly - he’s not crazy, he’s not actually going to talk back at Natasha - as he’s dragged out of the room. He does hear Clint obnoxiously slurp what has got to be Tony’s coffee, like the five year old everyone knows he is.

“So that’s Tony Stark. He takes some getting used to but, don’t worry, his bark is worse than his bite. Welcome to the Avengers!”

Fucking Clint.

\---

Since that day in the warehouse, when seeing Steve made the Winter Soldier falter, giving _him_ a chance to take over for the first time in decades, Bucky’s been feeling pretty out of his depth. It’s been manageable though, and the moments of clarity he gets before the programming pops back in and takes control again have been getting longer. And things with Steve have gotten better, ever since admitted that he's known from the getgo that Steve wouldn’t give up on him easy. He still doesn’t remember much from his past, but his best friend’s stubbornness is one of the first things that came back to him. He knows there's not a snowball's chance in hell he could hold out against that.

Meeting Tony freaking Stark might be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back though. 

He looks over at Steve, a question on his lips, but stops dead cold when he sees that his best friend is staring after the engineer with what could almost be a wistful expression on his face. What. He crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows at Steve, waiting for him to remember he’s not alone in the room.

Steve blushes when he does, noticing that Bucky’s been staring. Out of the corner of his eyes, Bucky sees that Clint’s looking back and forth between the two of them, like they’re primetime entertainment or something. Yes, he knows what primetime entertainment is, okay. He’s been murdering people for HYDRA, not camping alone in the Siberian desert or something.

Steve clears his throat, and lowers his eyes to the floor, “So I guess now would be a good time to give you the tour.”

Bucky hums non-committedly and follows him out of the room, tossing Clint a glare on his way out. He knows what the archer is thinking, but the man doesn’t actually know shit so he can shove it up his ass, as far as Bucky’s concerned. His ribs still smart from the first conversation they had together.

As Steve takes him from room to room - the Tower belongs to Stark and he’s gotta admit that while the guy is probably certifiably insane, he’s got some seriously sweet digs - Bucky can’t help but admire the play of muscles across Steve’s shoulders and the trimness of his waist. He's also unfairly grateful that Steve feels comfortable turning his back on Bucky, like the Winter Soldier couldn't kill him in a handful of seconds. That’s Steve for you though, blindly trusting and always looking for the best of people. Huh. Bucky wonders whether that has anything to do with the way he was looking after Stark earlier.

Steve seems hesitant for the first time when they get to his rooms. Bucky rolls his eyes, because he can probably guess at what’s eating at Steve right now.

“What’s up, punk?”

“I, uhmm, I kind of assumed that you’d be staying with me when we got here? I mean! I don’t mean with me, unless you wanted to of course, just that… Well, it’s a big floor and there’s a lot of rooms, and… But like I said, uhm, I mean, like I meant to say…”

Bucky takes pity on Steve, because it’s physically painful to hear him stumble his way through the words, and interrupts him, “Look, I know I said I wasn’t the man you loved anymore. And I’m not. But that don’t mean you’re gonna get rid of me easily yeah? You’re still my best friend Stevie. Also, I really doubt Stark has a free floor with my name on it.”

Steve’s face falls, and Bucky hastens to clarify, “Not that I wouldn’t stay with you if he did. Look Steve, I’m fucking lost here. Clint and Natasha are nice” - Steve coughs out a laugh at this and okay, maybe nice isn’t the right word to describe those two, they’re more like casually terrifying - “but I’m not here for them. I mean, fucking with HYDRA is well and good, but you’re the only face I know. And imma need you around if I want to… get better I guess. So yeah, I’d like to stay with you.”

Steve visibly relaxes at Bucky’s words, and ah, yep, that’s his patented I’m-going-to-hug-you-now-because-I-have-feelings-and-I-would-like-to-share-them face. Steve’s arms wrap around him and it’s all Bucky can do to hold on tightly and bury his face in his best friend’s neck, trying not to break into tiny tiny pieces as he breathes him in for the first time in more than half a century. Right now, he can’t even remember why he tried staying away from Steve those first few days.

He would done better to remember that Steve is too stubborn to let him do his penance alone and isolated anyways. He wonders if Steve will ever see the blood that soaks his hands, his arms, right up to his elbows sometimes. Judging from how tight Steve’s embrace is right now, he doesn’t think so. And maybe that’s okay. Bucky’s going to have to work on it, but Steve’s always made him want to be a better man after all, and maybe it’s going to okay.

Still, he’s not going to be sharing a bed with Steve again. There’s only so much he’ll allow himself to taint.

“Alright Captain, show me how many extra guest rooms you got.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay this so chapter is one single scene, it's a vv heavy discussion between Steve and Sam because there was gonna be a day where Steve was going to have to stop stuffing that corner in his mind with all the shit that's going wrong and start trying to actually process some of it. This is that start. It's pretty angsty, but I tried adding a dash of humor to lighten the overall mood.
> 
> I'm still not entirely happy with the state of this scene but I think it's the best it's gonna be at this point, so there's no use for me to keep desperately switching out verbs. I've mentioned before that I really struggled writing Sam, and I don't know if I did a good job at all, so I'd appreciate your thoughts on this :)
> 
> PS: 1) next update probs won't take a week because I've already edited the following chapter while procrastinating on writing this one lol and 2) two people will kiss in that chapter ;) #anticipation
> 
> That's all you get for now. Enjoy :D

“On your left!”

Sam is panting heavily as Steve comes up behind him and overtakes him for the fifth time this morning.

The sun is out today. Steve is enjoying the moment while trying his best not to think about Bucky, passed out on the couch on their floor, or Tony, whom he hasn’t seen since that awkward conversation in the kitchen several days ago. 

He pushes his legs harder, breaking into a sprint as he starts another loop, needing the burn of his muscles to take his mind off the two men who occupy all his thoughts nowadays. But it’s no use. Last night was a bad one for Bucky. Steve had violently woken up to his best friend’s screaming, only to find him in tears, cowering in a corner of his room and whispering furiously to himself with his long hair tangled in a punishing metal grip.

Steve knows by now that on those nights, Bucky won’t talk to him. He probably thinks that Steve doesn’t deserve to hear about the things that he’s done, or that Steve would forsake him for them.

It was all Steve could do last night to sit on the floor by his bed, trying his best to be a silent yet reassuring presence. He knows Bucky won’t believe him if he says anything about how strong he’s being, and how proud Steve is of him for having decided to stay. To try and get better, despite the programming that must be making his mind a living hell. His nightmares certainly are.

They’d had that conversation before coming back to the States, and Steve had promised him he’d be there. It’s all he can do now to try and prove that he wasn’t lying. He’s under no illusions that this will be a quick fix, and he’s more than happy to already see some signs of progress in the way that Bucky handles the flashbacks and those moments when his movements still, taking on the unnerving qualities of the Winter Soldier.

But it's hard. He doesn’t know all of Bucky’s triggers yet and so he’s been skirting a number of topics in an effort to avoid them. Which means there’s been awkward silences and stilted looks and it chokes him, this constant _doubt_ plagues him and threatens to drown him.

__

__

He can't help but wonder in those moments if he's actually doing any good at all, or just making a bad situation worse by failing to draw Bucky out. 

He sighs as he comes to a stop a little distance behind Sam, knowing that his friend will see right through the happy front he’s trying to put on.

“You done embarrassing me Cap?”

Steve tosses a wink his way, “Just making sure you know that an old man like me can run you into the ground any day.”

Sam scoffs, “Please. You, old? For a relative definition of the term, don’t even try that shit on me Rogers.”

Steve chuckles and leans his head back to drink what’s left of his water, avoiding Sam’s eye as he pretends he didn’t pick up on the double meaning behind his words.

Sam isn’t going for it though, and simply straightens up in front of him once he’s done getting air back into his lungs, raising an eyebrow. Steve can tell how hard he’s refraining from crossing his arms right now, trying to come off as inviting. Sometimes he hates that Sam knows how difficult it is for him to talk about these things, yet always finds a way to give him the option so that he’s the one left feeling like a bad friend when he shuts down for the tenth time.

He sighs, staring off to the side. Sam stays silent. He’s clearly picked up a few things from Bucky.

“Do we have to talk about this?”

“You mean whatever’s got you so wired up that you literally left me standing in the dust today? Up to you, really.”

Sam’s shrug isn’t even forced. Steve doesn’t know how he does it, stressing that he thinks Steve should discuss it without making him feel pressured or robbed of the choice. He exhales loudly and walks over to the grass by the path, sitting down. He doesn’t look at Sam, but it’s barely a second later that he’s sat down next to him, his arms coming to rest on his knees as he waits for Steve to collect his thoughts.

“I’m scared of messing Bucky up.”

There’s a slight pause and a thoughtful hum and then, “What do you mean messing him up?”

Sam’s voice is devoid of judgment, not even curious. It’s just a neutral question, like he’s genuinely interested in what Steve has to say but won’t glorify or condemn him for it either way. It’s exactly what Steve needs to feel like Steve and not Captain America, like Bucky’s friend and not his keeper. The vise that’s been slowly compressing his heart over the last couple of weeks relaxes just a little and that’s all it takes for him to be able to start talking.

“I don’t know, I just.” Steve swallows. “He’s struggling so hard still, and sometimes all I can do is sit there and I have no words to make it better, there’s nothing I can say that can take him out of that place in his head.” He presses his hands down into the grass, the dirt between his fingers grounding him for a moment. “And what if that’s what he needs? What if after _decades_ spent hearing bad things, or nothing, he’s waiting for someone to talk to him?”

He pauses. Sam stays quiet, somehow sensing how badly Steve needs to complete this train of thought. 

“I’m not that person. Because I can’t think of any darn thing to say when his screaming wakes me up and all I can see in front of my eyes is him falling out of that train again and again and _again_ like a moving picture on a _loop_.” He feels his eyes fill with tears, unable to cope with the memory. “And even if I could tell him all the things that run through my mind… like how brave he’s being… and, and, how happy I am that he came to me, he wouldn’t believe me. I don’t know how to make him believe me Sam.”

Steve clenches his hands into fists, feels his jaw tightening as a result of the anger he directs at himself. He won’t shed any tears.

“And I just, I _can’t_. He was supposed to be able to trust me, we promised till the end of the line, and I’m _failing him_. What good is being Captain America if I can’t even save my best friend?”

He’s breathing hard and fast at this point, and he drops his face in his hands, feeling strangely empty now that his fears are out there. He can almost see the words floating in front of his eyes and it’s an effort not to reach out for them and try to take them back in, because he’s still not sure he doesn’t deserve all this pain for letting the love of his life fall to his death.

Sam hums thoughtfully, and Steve sees him lean back on his hands out of the corner of his eye as he raises his head and distantly watches the people running on the path.

“I don’t think anyone but you thinks you’re failing him, Steve. From what I’ve seen, James Barnes is a pretty independent man, and a hell of one at that. Saving people isn’t how this works. He’s been through hell and back, and what matters today is that he’s back. _That’s_ what he’s building on as he processes what happened to him, and you’re a part of that. That’s how you help. By being there, and giving him what he needs. But you won’t know what he needs until he asks you, and you can’t rush that. So rather than assume what you think is best, let him come to you in his own time. Don’t treat him like broken glass, he knows how to handle himself. Like you said, you promised him till the end of the line. So far, I’d say you’ve been pretty good about keeping that promise. You’re still here aren’t you? He knows where to find you if he needs something from you other than the support you’ve already been giving him.”

Steve doesn’t even notice that his breathing has dwindled down to an acceptable rate until it has. Sam still isn’t looking at him, and Steve appreciates the space, because he’s not sure what his face is doing right now but it’s probably not good.

It’s a novel idea for him, the thought that he may not be responsible for everything and everyone around him. He’s not sure he’s built like that.

“So what you’re telling me is that I’ve been doing all I can do for now.”

“Yep.”

Steve scowls. “I don’t like it.”

Sam laughs at that. “Captain Steve Rogers, needing a battle plan _other_ than laying low? Color me surprised.”

Steve loves that Sam calls him that, and not Captain _America_. He’s talking about the person, not the symbol, and that’s who Steve wants to be for Bucky. It feels good to know other people see _this_ version of him, too.

“So we’ve gotten the painful stuff sorted out for now, wanna tell me what that other thing that’s been bothering you is?”

Steve sighs, because he knows exactly what Sam’s talking about. “Not particularly. It’s not even really worth mentioning.”

“Uhuh. You think we haven't noticed that Stark's been avoiding you like the plague? What did you do, pull his pigtails?”

Steve rolls his eyes, “I don’t really know, to be honest. Things have been weird since I, well, _we_ , got back.”

“Weird how?”

“He used to… I don’t know, talk to me, I guess? It’s like we’re back to square one now, before we even started yelling at each other all the time. He just, must walk the other way when he sees me or something because I’ve barely caught a glimpse of him recently.”

“Why do you think that is?”

Ugh, Sam.

“I have an inkling, but I don’t know if I’m right and I don’t think it’d be a good idea to bring it up even if I was. You know how he is.”

“Not really, actually. You’re kind of the only one he deigns to grace with the honor of his presence. Well, _deigned_ , I guess.”

Steve pauses at that, thinking back on those couple years between coming out of the ice and finding Bucky. There's. no way that's true. Right? But as he sifts through the memories he has of them as a team, he can’t help but notice that Sam has a good point, that Tony’s always kept himself removed from the group somehow, only ever really interacting with Steve.

“Oh.”

“Ding ding ding. And we have a winner! I swear, for a brilliant strategist, you can be painfully oblivious sometimes, man.”

This could be a problem. Because if he’s the only one Tony’s made an effort with, only for it to somehow come crashing down, he doesn’t see many other overtures being made by the engineer in the future.

“I’m gonna have to talk to him, aren’t I?”

“I think so yeah. I don’t know much about the guy, but I’d say it’s a safe bet that he ain’t gonna be the one who comes looking for you. What did happen between the two of you anyways?”

He can’t help it, he has no poker face, never did. Bucky always complained about it, loudly, whenever he took him out to play cards back then. 

Steve blushes.

Sam’s eyes widen, and he whistles lowly, causing Steve to blush deeper. “Yeah okay, shit. Wow, I can see why things got awkward when Barnes was added into the mix.”

Sam has an uncanny ability to zone in on the issue right away, and Steve has nothing to add to that, so they stay silent for a few minutes, Steve lost in thought while the other man probably processes.

Sam suddenly exclaims disgustedly, “You just made me lose money to _Barton_.” It’s such an unexpected thing to hear that Steve barks out a laugh, shaking his head as he imagines the context in which those bets were placed. He _really_ doesn’t want to know what Natasha called.

Sam is obviously still internalizing this new knowledge, because the next thing that comes out of his mouth is “Aha! So he _was_ checking you out that time the spandex got ripped.”

Steve splutters. His face feels like it’s on _fire_. Sam giggles and puts his hands up, “Alright alright man, I’ll stop before you hurt yourself. Good luck handling Stark.” There's an awkward pause. “ _Jesus_ , I can’t believe that phrase is now a double entendre.” Sam fakes a shudder and Steve rolls his eyes, trying to will away the blush that is still heating his cheeks, accepting the hand that the other man offers him to get back up.

Sam claps him on the back as they start heading back to the tower. “You’re gonna be just fine, Rogers.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is the longest so far, I think. We've got all three POVs although Steve's is just one sentence, you'll see why ;)
> 
> Pretty angsty overall. Serious communication failures in the beginning, followed by a cards-on-the-table type discussion which leads to angst&fluff.
> 
> As teased, there is a kiss in this chapter, may or may not be the one you've been expecting. Hopefully I'm keeping you guys on your toes!
> 
> Next chapter will see our guys out of the Tower and it will be LONG so brace yourselves.
> 
> As always, looking forward to your comments and thank you for reading <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> V brief mention of PTSD around the middle, at the beginning of Bucky POV. It's basically just the term that's used as Bucky muses about some material that Sam passed on to him. There's no actual discussion of PTSD, the closest it gets is when Bucky uses the word 'process' to talk about how he's getting on a bit further down.

Tony is putting the finishing touches on the new arm he’s designed for Barnes. He’s spent the past few weeks learning everything about prosthetics and neural connections so that the super-soldier can have an arm that wasn’t made by fucking HYDRA. He knows a little about what it feels like to have something foreign in his body, but at least he built his. If his torturers had made the arc reactor, Tony knows he’d have an even harder time living with himself, and feeling comfortable in his body. It’s hard enough as it is.

It’ll need some serious work to actually get the arm linked into Barnes’ nervous system but that’s a bridge he’ll cross when it comes to it. He doesn’t see himself approaching the two super-soldiers about his latest project anytime soon anyways, cause things have been tense, so he’s got heaps of time. 

Natasha had apprised him of the situation that first day after the awkward kitchen introduction, narrated the story of the Winter Soldier. Tony had been pissed at first, that Steve would bring someone like that to live with them, in what is after all technically still his tower.

He doesn't really know what he'd been looking for when he’d watched all the footage of the Winter Soldier that JARVIS could scrounge up. He definitely hadn't been looking for what he found.

To say that he’d been angry to discover that the guy had killed his parents would be an understatement. He’d been _furious_ , ready to go up there and unleash hell onto fucking Barnes, and Rogers, too. But then he’d noticed the Winter Soldier’s face on the footage, seen how blank it had been, and taken a minute to actually _think_ about it.

He’d remembered that the Avengers are all fucked up, and it’d be the height of hypocrisy for him to pass judgment on Barnes, especially for things that were clearly outside his control. Barnes had been the weapon, someone else had ordered the hit, and it was _that_ person who took the Starks off the chessboard.

Tony had figured out pretty quickly that the one responsible was in fact closer to home than he could ever have guessed. Fucking Stane. _Fucking Stane_.

All in all, it'd been a hell of a shitty day.

So he'd broken some pretty expensive shit, he'd drunk without pause for a couple of days, he'd passed out. When he'd woken up, feeling like death warmed over, he'd sat his ass down and gotten to work.

He’s been in denial about the Winter Soldier’s role in his parents’ death ever since, unwilling to blame him but unable to come to terms with it either. His mind is a strange no-man’s land when it comes to super-soldiers these days. No one ever said Tony Stark had healthy coping mechanisms.

He’s just told JARVIS to start rendering the arm when he hears the door to the workshop open. Quickly, he gets rid of the schematics and pulls up the plans for the new StarkPhone instead. He’s supposed to be working on that anyways, Pepper’s already called him a few times and he knows that the board is getting antsy. Seriously though, when has he ever let them down? Ugh. It is the bane of people of inferior intellect to fail to appreciate his genius, he supposes.

Steve’s voice interrupts his musings and he’s all the more glad he hid the Barnes project.

“Hey Tony. JARVIS says you’ve been down here for fifty-six hours, it’s probably time you took a break. It’s dinner time, why don’t you head up and get some food.”

None of these sentences sound like questions. Great. They haven’t talked in weeks and the first thing Steve does is try to micro-manage him.

“I’m fine Rogers. Go bother someone else.” Sue him, he’s tired and anxious about how the arm is gonna turn out.

“Tony.” Steve sighs. “Can we please not fight for once? I just came down here to talk to you.”

“I’m talking. We’re talking. This is us talking. What do you want?” He's never understood why talking to Rogers always proves so damn _difficult_.

Steve visibly restrains himself from responding to the barb. “Look, before I left, I told you I wanted to talk to you. I’m sorry I haven’t been by yet, things have been a bit complicated with, well, with Bucky.”

“Figured as much. Don’t sweat it Cap, I don’t even remember what you wanted to talk about anyways.”

It’s a lie. It’s such a big, fat, lie, and Steve knows it. Tony wishes he’d take the cue anyways. He’s giving him an easy out here. He’s seen how the two super-soldiers act around each other, obsessively watching the feeds when the others think he’s sleeping. They should know that Tony Stark never sleeps.

“Look, that night-”

“Let me stop you right there. We spent the night together, yes, but that’s all there is to it.” It burns his throat to say it. “We’re both consenting adults, we had a good time, and we’re not gonna do it again. There was never anything there anyways. ‘That about the size of it?”

Steve’s face visibly shutters and he takes a step back, as if trying to protect himself against the bite of Tony’s words. Tony wishes he could tell Steve that he understands, that now that Barnes is back he’s always gonna be second best, but he’s never figured his way around words when they actually matter. And, at the end of the day, he doesn’t want Steve to feel unrequited guilt or whatever he got into his head about the way he left things with Tony when he departed for that godforsaken mission. 

Steve obviously doesn’t want to let this go though. “You can’t just push me away like this Tony.”

“Push you away? From what? There’s nothing here. What the fuck do you want from me? You got Barnes back, leave me the hell alone.”

Steve flinches. Tony obviously crossed a line by mentioning Barnes. He should feel vindicated, but all he feels is lost.

“Fine Tony. If that’s the way you want things to be. God knows you always get what you want, right?”

Tony opens his mouth to answer, to laugh hysterically at something that could not be any less true, but finds that he has nothing he wants to say in response that won’t be pathetically honest. He’s afraid that if he answers, words might come out that he’s not allowed to feel. The venom in Steve’s voice hurts, but it’s not surprising. He’s the one who pushed him. He wanted this. Right?

“Yeah sure whatever. We done here?”

“Yes, we’re done.” Steve says this with such finality that Tony has to wonder whether he means something else by it. He turns back to the phone designs, barely comprehending what's in front of him as his heart beats surprisingly hard and fast in his chest. He’s fine. Tony Stark isn’t meant to have nice things. Maybe if he tells himself that often enough, he’ll start to be okay with it, to truly believe it. Howard did, after all.

The sound of the door closing behind Steve sounds too loud in the silence that he leaves behind. Tony feels so very alone.

\---

Steve is fuming.

\---

Bucky is sitting on the couch, slowly working his way through some of the material that Sam gave him on PTSD, trying to think of how he might convince Steve to take a look at them as well, when the door is thrown open and the man himself stomps in. Bucky doesn’t startle easily anymore, so he just raises his brows, wondering what got Steve in such a snit. He hasn’t seen this expression on his face since he was 16, scrawny as all hell, and looking for a fight. He’d coined it ‘righteous fury’ back then.

He’s about to snark at Steve when the other man interrupts him, throwing a harsh “Don’t” his way. Unimpressed, Bucky leans back against the couch and crosses his arms.

“‘the fuck’s gotten into you?”

“Just,” Steve scrubs at his face, barely breathes in, “just don’t. I swear to God.” Steve exhales harshly. “Fucking. Tony.”

Wow, Steve is swearing. What the hell did Stark do to him? Bucky keeps quiet, watching Steve struggle with what is obviously some deep shit, knowing that giving him the time to find his words is usually the best way to get him talking. Steve doesn’t say anything else though, so Bucky decides to prompt him.

“Wanna tell me what he did that got your panties in such a bunch?”

Steve looks uncharacteristically hesitant. Bucky frowns. “Steve. Talk to me. This is obviously eating you up.”

Steve refuses to meet Bucky’s eye. “I don’t know if I should talk to you about this.”

“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean.” Bucky’s voice sounds harsh, he knows this, but seriously, what the fuck is that supposed to mean. “You know you can talk to me about anything.”

“Can I?” Bucky flinches, and Steve seems to regret the question as soon as it comes out of his mouth, looking away and working his jaw.

He doesn’t back down though, squares his shoulders and turns back around to meet Bucky’s eyes straight on. Bucky is getting the feeling that he may not like where this is going. For Steve to look like he’s about to go into battle, he must really think Bucky isn’t gonna be happy with what he hears.

With startling clarity, like his brain just caught on or something, Bucky suddenly remembers that look in the kitchen. Fuck. He swallows, almost wanting to cut Steve off before he even starts. He’s showing his nerves, he knows. As a sniper, he can hold the same position for hours on end without moving a muscle but somehow all it takes is one look from Steve, the possibility that he may not be Bucky’s anymore, and his entire being comes unravelling. Fuck that bullshit about not being the man that Steve loved (loves?) anymore, that punk is still his fucking sun. What the hell is he gonna do without him to show him where to orbit? Fuck. Oblivious to the shit that’s going on in Bucky’s brain right now - or, perhaps, maybe _because_ he can guess at it - Steve takes it upon himself to fill the awkward silence that has arisen.

“Look, you have to understand, I had no idea you were the Winter Soldier. No idea you were,” Steve closes his eyes, “alive. How could I have known it was you we were tracking? I couldn’t-” Steve swallows visibly, seems to be on the verge of tears for a moment, “I didn’t _know_. And now you’re back, and I don’t think I’ll ever find a way to repay God for this gift he’s given me.” He opens his eyes and looks at Bucky like he’s the answer to a question Bucky didn’t even know Steve was asking.

Bucky looks away. He could never really handle the full power of Steve’s earnestness. People like him burn when they look at the sun too closely. He wonders what this has to do with Tony. He looks back at Steve, smiles ruefully, figures he might as well go for broke, “You gotta help me out here _pal_ , I have no idea what’s going on in that thick head of yours.”

Steve winces at the ‘pal’ - Bucky’s always been an asshole: even back when he was someone’s better half, he gave it twice as good as he got, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon - and walks over to the couch. He sits across from Bucky, on the coffee table. Rests his palms on his knees, looks at Bucky. His face is just so fucking _earnest_ , Jesus.

“When I first met Tony, it didn’t go well.” Steve chuckles, but it has no mirth in it. “Well, it went horribly, actually. We both said things we didn’t mean, and it got ugly pretty fast. It was hard to work together after that, at first.” Steve pauses, gets a thoughtful look on his face, seems to be collecting his thoughts. Bucky is helpless to do anything but listen, although he’s pretty convinced by now that he was right and he definitely isn’t going to like how this story ends.

“But it got better, eventually. I learned not to take everything he says at face value, and he started trusting me, both on the field and off. We talked more, avoided the weak spots without avoiding each other.” Steve is staring off into the distance now, a slight smile upon his lips. Bucky can’t tell whether it’s a happy smile. He resents the uncertainty.

“For Tony Stark to consciously avoid using his words as weapons, well. It’s not a favor he grants everyone. We became friends, eventually.”

Steve looks back at Bucky, takes a deep a breath. “A couple months ago, right before I went on that mission where I found you-” Steve’s eyes warm as he says this and Bucky takes a moment to feel strangely vindicated that they do this when he thinks of _him_ , “Tony and I spent the night together.” Bucky stops breathing. Steve looks away.

“It just happened, I don’t know how else to explain it. We were arguing one moment, I don’t even remember what about now, and the next… Well.”

Steve blushes, and Bucky feels a strong pang of jealousy course through him. He clenches his jaw. The idea of someone else getting their hands on Steve, coaxing the noises that Bucky hears in his dreams out of him, it’s intolerable. He knows he’s being unfair, but he can’t help himself. Steve must see this play out on Bucky’s face because he hastens to continue.

“Nothing happened after that. We didn’t even talk about it. In fact, I was on my way to have a conversation with him when I got called away to follow up on the latest intel we’d gotten about you. I didn’t really get a chance to broach the subject since then and, when I tried to talk to him about it again this morning, well, he shut me down, pretty hard.”

Steve clenches his fists. “I’m just so _angry_ that we can’t talk about it like two mature adults and put this behind us. He is _impossible_. Why does he have to be _so damn_ -” Steve’s voice has gotten progressively louder over the last few sentences, and he visibly cuts himself off at this point. Bucky is left to wonder what adjective he’d have used to describe the engineer. “Anyway, that’s why I was so pissed off when I came in just now.”

Steve looks at Bucky expectantly, and Bucky doesn’t know. what. to say.

The silence is oppressive, weighing down on him. He doesn’t know what Steve wants. Why tell him about this? His body feels too small for him. Steve, Steve was with another man. He thought Bucky was dead and he granted someone else the privilege of seeing the most private parts of him. And the thing is, Bucky isn’t even actually mad or jealous or whatever it is. Like yeah, that was his gut reaction but that’s bullshit because Steve is his own person, independent of Bucky, and he’s damn happy that Steve hasn’t been pining or whatever this whole time. But Tony’s here. He lives here. He fights here. With Steve. Where the hell does that leave Bucky?

And does that mean that Steve doesn’t love Bucky anymore? Is that what he’s trying to tell him? Bucky won’t hold it against him, it’s been a long ass time since they were two punks from Brooklyn, and God knows there’s not much left of him to love anyways. He has to know, though, because if Steve saying that Tony was a one-off? He’s missing words, sounds to make sense of the emotions he’s feeling right now.

His voice cracks as he repeats Steve’s words, “You want to put it behind you?”

Steve frowns. This is obviously not the reaction he was expecting. He seems at a loss for words, opening his mouth only to close it back up. Bucky wants to laugh, to yell, to cry. He doesn’t move, because the control he has over his body is tenuous at best at this point. He doesn’t fucking know how to do this. He’s an ex-HYDRA assassin with a damn metal arm. He’s lost at sea here, and he desperately needs Steve to throw him a lifeline.

Steve, who still hasn’t answered. He’s obviously watching Bucky process this. Try to process this. He repeats the question, voice breaking on Stark’s name, “You want to put Tony behind you?”

Steve’s frown deepens. “Of course Buck, what do you… I mean why wouldn’t I? I’ve got you back. You’re all I ever needed, you know this.”

Wrong answer. Steve isn’t saying he doesn’t like Tony. He’s saying Bucky is enough. But Bucky doesn’t feel like he’s enough, hasn’t for a long time. Longer than those few weeks he’s been back with Steve. He’s half a man at best, how can he possibly be trusted to carry that burden? So no, he doesn’t know shit, actually.

“Steve, that’s not. You know I’m not the man I used to be. We’ve had this discussion. I won’t ever again be that person you’ve kept waiting for.”

As he says this, Bucky knows it to be true and he suddenly wants to cry. What was the point of everything if he can’t have Steve at the end of it all? 

“I can’t be a memory Steve. This, what the fuck does Sam call it, this _process_ , it can make me better yeah, but it can’t make me into the person that you remember, the person that you love.”

Steve’s eyes widen at that last statement, but he smiles. It’s small, but it’s not a sad smile, and it warms Bucky up all the way down to his toes. He hates that this man has so much power over him. He loves him for it.

“Buck, sweetheart,” Bucky shudders at the endearment, reminiscent of so many nights spent hiding away from everyone else, the two of them against the world, “I don’t think you understand. The man you were, the man you are, the man you will be, it doesn’t matter to me. I love you. All versions of you.”

Steve says this like it’s self-evident, like it’s the indisputable truth that rules his world. Bucky looks into his eyes, and sees nothing but unconditional love, blind trust, and an unwavering belief that the universe (not just the world anymore, cause apparently aliens are also a thing in this century, he got that update too) will bow to this fact. 

Bucky hates how small his voice sounds when he asks, “What if I never get better Steve? What if the nightmares, the ones that I know keep you up at night, by my side, what if they never go away? What if I can never be at your six like I once was?”

Steve shrugs, still smiling. Repeats, “That doesn’t matter to me. You’re here, and I’m here with you, and that’s all I could ever want, could ever care about. You’re the other half of me, and with you back by my side I feel complete for the first time since I came out of the ice.”

A slight pause, and then, a rush of words, as if the simple act of giving them a voice is more than Steve can bear. “Unless you don’t- I mean, I would understand if you didn’t-” and his smile has disappeared now, and Bucky won’t stand for this. A world where he wouldn’t want Steve isn’t a world worth living in, and he suddenly needs Steve to know this like he needs oxygen to breathe.

He reaches out, and Steve, who’s always been on the same wavelength as him, meets him halfway. Their lips crash together, magnetic. It feels like coming home. Bucky’s holding his breath as he relearns the shape of Steve’s mouth, yet it feels like it's the first time he can truly breathe in a very long time.

Their first kiss in decades is short yet long, soft yet rough, chaste yet suggestive. It warps in on itself, refusing to bow to trivial rules like time and distance.

Bucky finally pulls away but keeps his hand on Steve’s neck, lays his forehead against his. He allows himself the luxury of breathing in Steve’s air, lets his best friend hold him up for just a little while longer. God knows they still have serious shit to work through, to talk through - not least of which is Stark because Bucky knows Steve isn’t the kind of person who lets people go just like that - but right now, with the taste of Steve in his mouth, and the brush of his lips across his cheeks, Bucky feels human. And for him nowadays, feeling human is a pretty fucking great feeling.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovelies. Finally got a new chapter for you!! I'm a little iffy about how this one ends, which is why it took me so long to update this time. I ended up having to split it in two because I reworked the first part, oh, probably about a billion times. This is why the number of chapters has gone up to 10 - I'm taking this opportunity to remind you all that it is indeed all written so it won't be an unfinished WIP but it might take me a while to map out the chapter splits as I polish off the rest so worry not if you see the chapter count being upped!
> 
> In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this, it's a scene that is quite dear to my heart.
> 
> So we've got the usual Tony angst, with Steve and Bucky trying to help him but being rebuffed basically. It might get worse before it gets better, friends: but fret not, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel ;)
> 
> Thank you for the kudos and the comments, always <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: PANIC ATTACK. 
> 
> Tony has a panic attack as a result of seeing Bucky and Steve publicly happy together. I mean it's obviously more complicated than that but that's the best, quick, summary I can think of. The two super soldiers find him and help him work through it. If you do not want or feel up to reading this part, skip from "And Tony's just done" to "You okay, Stark?". Knowing what exactly is said/done during those moments isn't necessary for understanding the story nor for keeping track of the dialogue and character dev :)
> 
>  
> 
> Also, I want to take a moment to address some of the comments that were made on the last chapter. Neither of the three main characters in this fic is well-adjusted, whether emotionally or mentally. They all have a frankly insane amount of baggage, and it should not be surprising that they don't necessarily know how to successfully navigate human, adult relationships. This is set in the Avengers universe, where being emotionally mature is pretty much a thing of the masses. Steve will struggle through reconciling the feelings he may or may not have for Tony with the love he's always had for Bucky. Bucky is adjusting to, well, everything. And Tony of course has his own issues which make it exceptionally hard to communicate with him, never mind know what he's thinking or feeling at the best of times, which means that there's always going to be hits and misses.
> 
> In the end though, these three belong together and they'll figure their shit out. After all, and I can't believe I'm about to actually write this, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs ;)
> 
> THAT BEING SAID, I really do appreciate the interest this story has garnered so far, and that so many of you feel strongly enough about it to be concerned about Tony <3 That means a lot to me as a writer, and I hope the direction I take this story in is something you can get behind.
> 
> Thank you to my bff (yup) manboobs for always being there to remind me that, at the end of the day, I write for me, and that anyone who enjoys my words is a (very welcome and very appreciated) bonus.

It’s been a couple of weeks since that night when Steve tried talking to him. Tony’s gotten pretty good at avoiding the super-soldiers around the tower.

It’s not actually that hard since he basically doesn’t eat. If it wasn’t for Pepper ensuring that his workshop doesn’t have a coffee machine he would never have to go into the common areas at all. Really, that woman is a menace, she destroys the ones she finds, it’ll be the fourth one this year. It’s only March for fuck’s sake. But never let it be said that a Potts doesn’t get her way. He’d met her mother when they’d been together and she’d been the same, so Tony has resigned himself to his fate and instead trusts JARVIS to let him know when the coast is clear, so that he can fuel his addiction while avoiding, well, everyone to be honest.

The ride over here was pretty awkward. Hill insisted that the Avengers + Barnes all head out together to the charity gala hosted tonight to collect money for the Maria Stark Foundation, to present a united front or some other military sounding bs that Tony didn’t actually listen to. 

Playing the part of a petulant child is only fun when you do it to people who actually know what you mean when you say shit, which isn’t really an option with his team-members. See above: avoidance and refusing to become buddy-buddy with them. So he shut up and got in the limo like a good boy. He made himself a drink, and then another, feeling Rogers’ disapproving stare on him the entire time.

Ugh.

Tony wonders how Mr. Good would react if he knew that all Tony is drinking is soda with more soda. He’s been dry since that bender before he started working on Barnes’ arm, and today is NOT the day he’ll fall off the fucking wagon.

He’s been ‘drinking’ and schmoozing for over an hour now, and the smile on his face has rarely felt so fake. He sees Natasha and Clint a couple tables away, laughing over what seems to be a scarily accurate sketch of the senator of South Carolina with an arrow sticking out of… well. Might be that Tony isn’t the only one who enjoys acting like a five year old.

Of course, as the CTO and majority shareholder of Stark Industries, he can’t really go off and join the doodling competition. No, he gets to be (wo)man-handled - equal opportunity also applies to bad touch apparently - and passed off from person to person, everyone wanting a fucking piece of the famous Tony Stark. Can’t they see that if he gave them what they wanted, he’d be nothing but a shell of a man?

Wow. Maudlin alert. Now that he doesn’t have alcohol to act as a security blanket dulling his senses anymore, Tony tries to stay away from dark thoughts as much as possible. At least when he’s in public. And as it happens, the charity auction set up to collect money for the foundation he set up in his mom’s name to help refugees and kids from underprivileged neighborhoods access high-quality STEM education is pretty much the definition of public.

He tries to tune back into what the man across from him is saying, but finds that he’s fucking done with this shit as soon as he hears the words ‘racism against white people,’ so he excuses himself to go refresh his drink. The allegations of rampant alcoholism have their perks.

He concentrates on breathing in as he’s leaning against the bar, taking a sip of the new drink in his hand. He gives the room a quick once-over to take stock of all the Avengers (+ Barnes) and see if anyone needs saving - Rogers can say whatever he fucking wants, but he would actually lay down on the wire if it meant that one less person had to endure the sharks currently milling around the room: he grew up doing this, he knows how this shit works.

Thor is off-world, and Bruce still hasn’t come back from the trip he decided he needed after the Hulk injured a child in a battle last year, so it doesn’t take him long to assess the whereabouts of everyone.

The two assassins have moved from their table, and are now doing what seems to be a suspiciously obvious perimeter check. Tony wonders what the purpose of that is, until he realizes that they’re both closing in on Barnes, apparently having satisfactorily concluded that there is nothing or no one in the room that could trigger the Winter Soldier programming - at least as far as they know. He knows that it was Barnes himself who asked them to do it, which explains why they’re not being stealthy about it.

Speak of the devil. Bucky and Steve are currently talking to a group of the elderly, who seem to be thoroughly enjoying the addition of the WWII veterans to their conversation. As he watches, Tony can’t help but notice that the two men are constantly brushing up against each other. They’re casual touches, probably invisible to the untrained eye, but obvious if you know what you’re looking for. They gravitate around each other, with one’s body unconsciously adjusting for the other’s movements. 

Bucky says something that makes the group laugh, and Steve turns his head to smile at him. It’s not what you would call a friendly smile. It’s a smile that’s got a hell of a lot of love, and a hint of possessiveness. It’s a smile that makes Tony feel warm inside, even though it’s not aimed at him, because he knows what it feels like to have Steven Rogers smile at you like that, somehow. He refuses to think about that and what it means.

He wonders if the two super-soldiers know that they look like a couple. And a damn attractive one at that. 

He doesn’t have to wonder long, because it’s barely a minute later - Tony’s only halfway done with his glass - when some old people music comes on and Bucky steps away from the group, holding out his hand to Steve with a challenging quirk to his brows. Steve blushes and says something that Tony can’t hear from here, but Bucky stands his ground and Steve relents, taking his hand and following him out on the dancefloor. Tony watches them dance and figures that they do know what they look like. They’re definitely (back?) together, and they’ve decided to tell the whole damn world while they’re at it apparently, because they sure as hell aren’t leaving a whole lot of room for Jesus.

He decides to stop torturing himself with the real-life version of things he can’t have and turns back to the bar, signalling for another drink as he throws back the one in his hand. It’s a good thing that he paid the staff to not give him anything with alcohol in it, because he’d probably be asking for a real drink at this point otherwise.

He wishes Pepper were here. She’s been his unofficial sponsor ever since he let it slip that he’d stopped drinking a few weeks back. But she’s in Malibu right now, showing the board the new StarkPhone designs he finally finished yesterday, and he can’t expect her to drop everything and deal with his problems at a moment’s notice anymore.

And Rhodey is still deployed fuck-knows-where.

He sighs and takes the new drink with the intention of making his way to the patio outside, desperately needing a breath of fresh air to rid his mind of the longing. Except that the song is over and as he pushes away from the bar, his eyes slide over to the two soldiers and find Steve staring right at him, with that same disapproving look from earlier appearing on his face as his eyes drop to the drink in Tony’s hands.

And Tony’s just done.

He can’t take this anymore. The constant disappointment, the (self-imposed) distance, the absence of both Pep and Rhodes, and the struggle. The fucking struggle that he’s going through right now trying to fight his addiction, every _single damn day_. It saps so much of his energy.

He suddenly feels like he’s about to keel over, and harshly sets the glass on the bar that’s still a cold line of contact against his back.

He makes his way to the restroom, breaths coming in shorter pants. He knows he’s about to have a panic attack, he can recognize the signs even though he hasn’t had one since the day Pepper left him.

He can’t be out there for this.

He crashes into the bathroom, not even making it to one of the cubicles before his back knocks into the wall and he’s sliding down to the floor, arms coming up to wrap around his knees even as he feels like he’ll never be able to take another breath.

He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe, and his vision is blurry now, with black spots creeping in from the edges. He tries to gets his lungs to expand, to accept the oxygen, but he feels like he’s choking on the air and he’s crying a little now, because this feels too much like Afghanistan, when he couldn’t breathe because his head was underwater.

There’s a buzzing in his ears that’s making it impossible to _think_.

He wonders if this is it. He hates the part of himself that wishes it were.

Suddenly, there’s a body sliding between him and the wall, in the space he’s left open as his chest has folded over his knees. Strong arms encircle him from behind, giving him a warm and constant presence to offset the cold of the tiles.

In front of him, there’s a hand taking his, placing it over a steady-beating heart, matched by the even movement of that chest as it breathes in. and out. A second hand takes his and links their fingers together, placing them to rest over the side of the arc reactor, slightly to the left, right where his own heart is.

There’s a voice telling him to breathe - “come on Tony, you can do this, just take it one at a time,” - a second one joining in - “there you go Stark, just follow my lead, breathe in. and now out. and again. take your time, there you go.”

The buzzing in his ears lessens.

It’s fucking slow going but eventually Tony manages to gulp a deep lungful of air and exhale, and then another - “you’re doing great Tony, keep it up,” - and finally, after what feels like an eternity, he can breathe again. “Try to match my heartbeat Stark.”

The buzzing stops.

He leans his head back on an impossibly wide shoulder, keeps his eyes closed, and stays focused on his breathing, banishing the images of Afghanistan to the dark corners of his mind. Tony categorically refuses to give up more pieces of his self than have already been taken.

He feels, rather than sees, the twin breaths of relief that two people exhale. There are fingers carding through his hair, and fingers flexing on his chest.

Tony knows who they belong to. His brain is no longer lacking the oxygen necessary to make what is after all a simple deduction. And he knows that, when he opens his eyes, he’ll have to say something, to thank them, but right now he just wants to pretend that the two men who occupy a disproportionate number of his thoughts lately haven’t just seen him at his weakest. 

So he decides to stay like this for just a little bit longer. He swallows a few times to try and get rid of the stale taste in his mouth.

“Tony?”

Yup, moment of delusion over. He disentangles his fingers from Barnes’, and lifts his head off of Rogers’ shoulder, looking off to the side when he finally opens his eyes. The moment feels too real, and he can’t deal with it, not so soon after the panic attack, not when he still feels like brittle glass. He clears his throat, wants to deflect, make a joke.

All that comes out is “um, thanks.”

He winces at how awful his voice sounds. He clears his throat again. And again. Out the corner of his eye, he sees the two super-soldiers exchange a look over his head. Awesome.

“You okay, Stark?”

Maybe if Tony knew Barnes he’d be able to decipher the look on his face but as it stands all he can tell is that it’s not murderous. Which, huh, actually, is pretty good as far as things go with Barnes nowadays. He may not be HYDRA programmed anymore - at least, they really hope so - but that still doesn’t mean the Sergeant is the friendliest guy around. 

“Peachy, yeah.”

Barnes looks distinctly unimpressed, crosses his arms. No one should be able to make that look threatening when they’re sitting cross-legged on a restroom floor and wearing a tuxedo that is clearly off the rack. Jesus. He looks over Tony’s head and his eyes seems to say ‘he’s all yours.’

Splendid.

“Tony, how are you feeling, really? There’s no need to tone it down for us. We just want to make sure you’re alright.”

Tony lashes out, because he doesn’t know how to be any other way.

“Okay I know you guys are fucking and like, soulmates or whatever, but it is _seriously_ creepy when you talk as if you’re the same person.” 

He fakes a shudder, and starts to get back up cause hello he needs to get out of there.

He however finds himself back on the ground damn quickly when that piece-of-shit metal arm - seriously, the one he’s made is so much better, he really needs to find a way to get Barnes to upgrade at some point - clamps down on his shoulder and _pushes_.

“Why don’t you take another moment, cause you still look like a stiff breeze could blow you over, and maybe stop being an asshole for a minute while you’re at it.”

Barnes looks almost amused as he says this. Tony’s kind of confused, thinks he preferred it when he was being unreadable. People are usually offended and sputtering at this point but the Sergeant looks relaxed as all fuck and like Tony’s being a particularly entertaining child. What a patronizing asshole. 

He shrugs.

Tony Stark doesn’t apologize.

He hasn’t said those words to anyone since Howard threw them back in his face when he was thirteen years old and had metal burns covering his arm.

Today isn’t the day that streak is going to get broken.

There’s an awkward silence, the still ragged-sound of his breathing sounding exceptionally loud. Barnes is still sporting that dumb half-amused look on his stupid face. Tony’s just happy he can’t see Rogers.

“How are you feeling? Better?”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah Rogers, I’m fine.”

“You don’t really look fine.”

“Thanks ever so much Barnes, for that _stellar_ contribution.”

He can practically feel the levels of frustration ramp up around him, which gives him an ungodly amount of satisfaction.

Tony smirks, looks straight at Barnes because Rogers is still somehow behind him, still fucking touching him.

“We done? Can I go now, or are you gonna push me to the ground again?”

Barnes shrugs, face unreadable once again. Fucking assassins, seriously. Tony is so done with everyone being cooler than him. He’s supposed to have, like, _invented_ cool goddamnit.

“I ain't your keeper Stark.”

Tony opens his mouth, “Now _that_ -”

“Tony-”

“Oh my god, Rogers, can we fucking not?”

How many times is he gonna have to pretend he doesn’t care? Can’t they all just fucking move on? Jesus, what is this, some kind of high school after-special? They’re all adults here, there’s no need for the fucking drama. 

It’s definitely time to cut his losses and get the fuck out of there.

Neither soldier tries to stop him this time.

He can’t tell whether that’s a good or a bad thing.

Does it matter?

\---

Steve is kind of grimacing, looking after Stark who's just stormed out of the bathroom. 

“Kinda gives a whole new meaning to the definition of ‘prickly’ eh?”

Steve sighs. “Yeah.”

“Sounds like you and he still have some unresolved shit going on.”

“I just-”

“I don't think you want to put it behind you like you said, to tell you the truth.”

Steve doesn't say anything. 

“Stevie.”

Steve swallows and if Bucky gave less of a shit about him he'd let this go. But Steve is never gonna forgive himself if he hurts Stark. If he loses him. 

“You’re probably right but hell if I know what to do about it. You saw it yourself, it ain't real easy talking to Tony.”

Bucky scoffs. “So? Since when are you the kind of man who gives up when shit gets tough?”

Steve sighs again. “Yeah.”

Bucky hums non-committedly. He ain't worried about Stevie's feelings for him.

He's just gonna have to make sure the punk stays on track.

He thinks, given time, he could probably like Stark.

He’s always had a soft spot for stubborn assholes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky POV. It's finally time for Steve to close one chapter of his life, aka someone passes on. 
> 
> That's kind of all I can think of to summarize it tbh. I enjoyed writing this chapter so I hope you guys like it! 
> 
> It's a bit of midway point for this fic, where Steve starts trying to assume the mantel of Captain more thoroughly and Bucky becomes more settled in his own skin, with Tony coming out of his shell a bit. We'll see what you guys make of it :) 
> 
> Oh there's some sexual tension in here too FYI ;) 
> 
> Next chapter is gonna see the Avengers in battle, so stay tuned for that!

It’s been slightly over a week since Tony’s panic attack at the Maria Stark Foundation Gala, and Steve still can’t quite get over the fact that he didn’t know Tony got those. He was so cavalier about it once he’d caught his breath, his walls back up barely a minute after Steve’s heart stopped trying to beat out of his chest.

And what a performance.

It’s nothing new, but Steve never stops noticing how easy it is to be fooled by the front Tony puts up, the armor that isn’t quite as flashy as the suit. This one doesn’t really come off though. Whenever he catches glimpses of it, and thinks about what would make such walls necessary, Steve can’t reconcile the Howard that he knew during the war with the one who left his son with quite so many scars. 

That night reminded Steve of how little he truly knows about his team. Yes, they’ve known each other for a couple of years now, and fought together many times, but they don’t really _know_ each other. Even now that they all live in the Tower, none of them are really close. They’re friends, sure, but all of them are adept at keeping their distance. The only exceptions are Clint and Natasha, who have history, and Steve and Tony, who… well.

Then again, Steve and Tony have only seen each other a handful of times since the Foundation Gala, and only at team trainings. And that’s after the three weeks blackout that followed Bucky arriving at the tower. The easy camaraderie that led to their night together is gone, and Steve sometimes wonders if it will ever come back. God knows he’s tried, ever since that debacle of a conversation in the workshop, attempting to talk to him whenever he runs into him on the common floor, but Tony won’t hear it. He doesn’t know what to do to get through to him if the engineer won’t even hear him out.

Steve doesn’t want things to be this way, but he doesn't want to track him down, doesn’t want to ambush him in his lab again. It's his space, and Steve wants to respect that. 

Wanting to give Bucky some time to himself as well, Steve has thus taken it upon himself to get to know his team better. He’s been using his time to do various activities with all the Avengers. All except Tony, who’s taken a rain check every time.

It’s been nice to get out of his head a bit, focus on other people and _their_ baggage rather than his own. God knows they all have some and more. It’s helped him process some things, too. Sam has a knack for getting him to chip at that wall in the corner of his mind where all those boxes have started rattling since Bucky’s return, without it coming crumbling down all at once. He’s still working on getting to really know Clint, but he knows that he and Bucky have been spending some time together, so he’s not really worried about the archer being excluded. Bucky hasn’t told him much, except to say that talking to Clint has helped him think about agency and the lack thereof. Steve remembers Loki, so he doesn’t need to ask what they talk about. It’s Bucky’s choice to decide what to reveal about his discussions with a fellow team member anyways.

Yes, he realizes he considers Bucky to be part of the team already and well, anyone who says otherwise is gonna have to answer to him and it ain’t gonna be pretty. It’s almost been two months since Bucky came back now, and he hasn’t been a threat once in that time. There’s been a couple of violent nightmares but Steve is always there to rouse him before he can inflict any damage and he’s quicker to wake up every time. Steve is no fool, he knows Bucky isn’t ready for active duty, and God knows whether he’ll want to fight once he’s able to anyways, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a place in the Avengers when he’s ready to accept it. He belongs with them.

Steve’s been getting along surprisingly well with Natasha. They used to barely talk outside of sparring, but now they spend quite a decent amount of time in each other’s presence, with Steve sketching and Natasha knitting. Nat even agreed to let Steve draw her in exchange for him holding her yarn. They don’t talk much and it’s nice, this feeling of companionship where they’ve both become comfortable with the other’s silences. Steve didn’t realize he needed that until he had it, a friendship with no expectations and an easy respect of each other’s space.

Not that seeing Nat knit makes her any less terrifying, Steve is pretty sure there are at least ten different ways she could kill him with one of the needles. When he said this to Bucky, Bucky snorted and said ‘I taught her thirteen.’ Steve had gaped, before collapsing into laughter at the mischievous look on Bucky’s face, tinged with a little apprehension as if he wasn’t sure whether he could joke about that. They’d both laughed until they couldn’t breathe, and Steve remembers how Bucky’s face had looked then, like he could be happy but didn’t quite believe it was allowed yet. It’s seared in his memory.

Things with Bucky have been good. Steve sometimes feels that there is a Tony sized elephant in the room, particularly since the Gala, but neither of them is acknowledging it. It’s been incredible to get the chance to relearn the shape of Bucky’s mouth, the cadence of his breaths, the way his eyelashes flutter when Steve kisses him a certain way. They haven’t done anything else, because Bucky hasn’t initiated it and Steve is definitely not gonna push him on this, still unsure of everything that he went through as the Winter Soldier. He’s fine with waiting. He’d be fine with never having sex again if it meant that he got to have Bucky by his side for the rest of his life. True, he’s had to jerk off more often than usual ever since Bucky got comfortable enough with his body again to start lounging about half-dressed like he used to when they were teenagers, and sometimes it drives him up the wall but all it takes is one shy smile from Bucky at the breakfast table and he knows he’d walk through hell for this man. A little sexual frustration is nothing he hasn’t been through before anyways: after all, he had to live through the 1930s and ‘40s with him, and the _army_.

His musings are interrupted by the door opening in and Bucky coming in, back from his run with Clint. They’ve all agreed that Bucky could leave the Tower once he passed the one month mark, but always in the company of another Avenger. It had actually been Bucky who’d insisted on it, scared of hurting other people should he switch back into the Winter Soldier.

Steve can’t tear his eyes away as Bucky tracks across the room. He wears a long-sleeved shirt when he runs, not wanting to show the arm, but it does nothing to hide his form, especially now that it’s soaking wet. Steve swallows when he sees the drops of sweat that have gathered in the hollow of his throat, follows the curve of Bucky’s arm as he unties his hair and then takes off his shirt, revealing a narrow waist and sharp hip bones that Steve wants to bite and lick and... Darn. He looks away, and he knows that he’s blushing now because his face is burning.

Thankfully, Bucky doesn’t seem to notice and Steve sees him walk in the bathroom out of the corner of his eye. He breathes out slowly, tries to stop his blood from flowing southward as he can’t help but imagine Bucky taking off his shorts, getting in the shower naked…Gosh. He needs to get out of here. He gets up and heads to his room to change into his workout clothes, intending to go to town on a few of the reinforced bags that Tony built him when they were still on speaking terms, but just as he’s about to start undressing, JARVIS’ voice rings out.

“Captain Rogers, Sir wishes to speak to you. Should I put him through”?

Steve can’t quite help the way his heart stutters when he hears this, even though he really wishes it didn’t. He’s so confused nowadays. He knows he loves and desires Bucky, but sometimes all he sees in his dreams is a pair of brown eyes and the soft, muted glow of an arc reactor.

“Yes of course, JARVIS, thank you.”

Tony’s face appears on his wall, and Steve’s heart constricts at how awful he looks. His eyes are bloodshot, his hair is standing up straight, showing signs of having been run through multiple times, and one of his eyelids is twitching, proof that Tony probably hasn’t slept in days. Steve sighs internally, knowing that whatever Tony has to say to him, it’s not gonna be good.

“Hey, uhm…” Tony’s voice is uncharacteristically hesitant, and his eyes aren’t looking into the camera. “I don’t really know how to say this.” A bitter, slightly hysterical laugh. Tony’s eyes are shining now, as if he’s about to cry. Steve has never seen Tony cry. Just as he’s opening his mouth to ask Tony what’s wrong, the engineer’s next words freeze him in place.

“Peggy died last night.”

\---

The March sun is unforgiving and Bucky’s grimacing as he ties his hair back in a bun, no longer willing to deal with the sweat that’s been accumulating at the back of his neck. He brushes Steve’s back when putting down his arm, a silent show of support for his best friend whom he feels is close to crumbling to pieces. He himself isn’t doing too well, but he knows what Peggy meant to Steve, saw how hard he worked to keep the tears back when he spoke in church, talking about that dance they never did get to have. For the first time in months, it’s his turn to hold Steve up, and he’s more than happy to do it.

He looks around as they walk out, reflexively cataloguing the people around them and their behavioral tics. A lot of the attendees are hard to pin down, what with being SHIELD. It’s not surprising that many of them are here, after all Peggy pretty much founded the agency and she was incredibly respected by her peers. She was a legend. Bucky would know, he’s killed a few of those.

He’s quick to stop himself from going down that road. He’s been doing a little better every day since he came back and he doesn’t intend on sliding back now. It was incredibly hard at first, and he’s still not sure how he managed to get through those first couple of weeks. If it hadn’t been for Steve, a steady presence who didn’t push but was there every single time he needed him, and Clint and Sam, he doesn’t know if he’d have made it. But now, he feels human again, and he’s been getting his memories back - the ones from before - and it’s okay. It’s better. And he wants to keep improving, because every day brings him a piece of his past, of himself, back, and whether it’s good or bad doesn’t matter: just the fact that he’s slowly plastering over the cracks means he’s less likely to break down and disappear, and maybe he’ll get to keep Steve after all.

Even without Steve though, Bucky knows he’s gotten to the point where he could contemplate going on on his own, and he’s never been so grateful to Steve than in these moments, when he knows that the person he’s becoming, the person he’s rebuilding, isn’t dependent on anyone for survival. For the first time in a long time, he’s a whole person and he doesn’t need anything except his own will to endure, that thing they could never completely wipe out of his mind, and God knows how hard they tried.

Today was the final proof. Steve has been barely more than a shadow since he learned of Peggy’s death, and Bucky knows now that he’s solid enough to provide a wall for Steve to hold up against, or hide behind. Whatever he needs, really.

He feels Steve tense next to him and looks up to see Stark approaching. Now, Stark, Bucky hasn’t quite figured out yet. Talk about hot and cold. That man is an enigma wrapped in contradictions. Silent and aloof for weeks one second, having a panic attack and personally telling Steve and Bucky about Peggy’s death the next. With some rude comments and almost-but-not-quite vulnerable moments thrown into the mix. He’s been giving Bucky whiplash, honestly. It doesn’t help that he’s hot as sin, and that Bucky has been getting quite frustrated what with all the sex he’s _not_ been having with Steve. He knows they need to take their time, especially because it’s only recently that Bucky’s sex drive came back, but it doesn’t make it any easier to will away the hard-ons he gets whenever Steve is walking around in a t-shirt that no one told him is too fucking small for him.

Stark comes up to them, but doesn’t say anything, simply falls into step with them, tapping on his phone like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Neither Steve nor Bucky say anything, but Bucky knows Steve would be tearing him a new one for being disrespectful if he wasn’t so lost in his own thoughts today. This goes on for a few minutes, before Stark finally puts his phone away and rolls back his shoulders, clearing his throat.

“Do you guys have a minute?”

Steve stops walking, and Bucky follows suit. Steve sighs and crosses his arms. “What do you want Tony?” Bucky knew it, he _knew_ that Steve was pissed as soon as Stark showed up playing on his phone. He wonders at this man’s ability to get under Steve’s skin so quickly. It seems like the air is always ripe with strained potential when the two of them are in the same place. 

“Right. I’ll be quick then.” Stark taps his fingers against his lips, staring off into the distance. “I don’t think I ever talked to you about this, Steve, but Peggy was kind of a big presence in my life when I was a kid. She and Howard remained close after the war, and she used to come to our place quite often, always taking the time to look at my designs and talk to me about the possible applications of the shit I was coming up with.” Stark gets a small wistful smile on his face, and Bucky inwardly raises his brows, wondering how young Stark was when he started engineering things. “Anyways, the point is that I’ve got quite a few pictures and videos of Peggy from back then. If you guys are fine with having to watch how awkward of a kid I was,” a self-deprecating shrug, “I’ve indexed them all in a folder you can both access through JARVIS.”

Bucky’s face must do something to register his surprise, because Stark looks straight at him and says “Yeah you too Barnes. I know Peggy was Steve’s, whaddya guys call it, dame, but you knew her too so I figured you might want to see them as well. It’s up to you really, just know you have the option.” Another shrug. He looks at Steve now, “You obviously don’t _have_ to vision them, but I just thought I’d make them available to you in case it could help with the, you know, the grieving. And with remembering her, since both of you missed quite a bit of her life.” Stark’s eyes gain a fond quality to them as he talks about her softly, “She really was quite a woman.”

He shakes his head, as if to get rid of the memories, and claps his hands. The sound is violent in the near silence that has settled since Stark started talking. It makes Bucky jump slightly, and he feels more than sees Stark looking at him with something like concern on his face. “Right, I’ll leave you two to it then. That’s all I had to say, really, so… I’ll see you when I see you.” Neither Bucky nor Steve say anything as Stark turns away and walks to his car, which pulls away as soon as he gets into it.

Bucky _really_ doesn’t understand this man. He’s obviously not as self-centered as people say, because only a person who actually gives a fuck about others would have done what he just did, without asking anything in return, not even their thanks. What is with the radio silence if Stark actually gives a shit about Steve, about _him_ , too, apparently? Bucky can’t help but feel challenged by the riddle presented by the engineer, and it’s kind of a good feeling. He’s always loved trying to figure out people who contrast the most with Steve, who has to be one of the most straightforward people he’s ever met.

Steve, who now turns back to him with something that could either be happiness or heartbreak on his face. Bucky knows this man like he knows himself, and he doesn’t miss the look of relief when he claps his hand on Steve’s shoulder and says, “Alright Stevie, let’s go home. I wanna see if Peggy kept riding Howard’s ass after the war.” 

Steve smiles ruefully, with something like gratefulness in his eyes, “I bet you she did, Buck.” He links his fingers with Bucky’s as they walk towards the subway, which they always take when they move around the city, and Bucky’s left to think back on his words and wonder when he started thinking of the tower as home.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay here's the thing. I actually had no intention of including a Peggy scene in this fic, but comments were made that hoped for that and I found myself wondering why I hadn't thought to write one before. The more I thought about it, the more I figured that, yeah, Peggy is fucking awesome, and there should be a bit more of her in this fic. Hence the Peggy footage in this chapter. However, because I apparently can't write anything but angst, this chapter ended up turning into a we-hate-Howard-fest (see updated tags). Still, I hope you appreciate the glimpse of Peggy-and-Tony I tried giving here.
> 
> ALSO ALSO, we have PEPPER AND RHODEY in this chapter! Yay. And JARVIS like loves Tony too.
> 
> I apologize in advance if this feels less polished than the rest: I wrote it as an add-in to my original plan so it's gone through less editing than the rest. (Also totally took some liberty with canon-dialogue of Tony/Steve's first meeting, because fuck canon sometimes yolo).
> 
> As always, thank you so much for your continued support, your kudos, and your comments!
> 
> LET CREATIVITY FOREVER BE UNBRIDLED.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: VIOLENCE TOWARDS CHILDREN.
> 
> There is a scene in this chapter where Howard is physically violent towards his son, Tony. If you cannot, or do not want to, read this part, skip the second italicized portion. Be aware that Steve and Bucky think back to witnessing this a couple times throughout the rest of the chapter.
> 
> The specifics are not necessary to know to follow the story or character development. Needless to say, however, that this scene is supposed to illustrate the general father-son relationship in the Stark family, which of course plays quite an important part in making Tony who he is today.

Tony’s lost in thought, staring blankly at the schematics in front of his eyes. He can’t conjure the energy necessary to care. He’s known this was coming for a while, but he can’t quite wrap his mind around it. Peggy, gone. 

She would call him Howard near the end, whenever he visited her. It hurt, but it was still better than this feeling of emptiness and bewilderment he’s experiencing at the moment. The last time he felt like this was when he was told about the car crash.

Obadiah had been there for him, then.

What a joke.

Yet, he can’t help but feel lonely without him here today. He’s alone. Everyone’s gone now. Peggy was the last holdout of his childhood and now that she’s passed, Tony feels untethered. Unmoored.

“...Sir?” JARVIS sounds like he’s been trying to get Tony’s attention for a while.

“Yeah.” His voice sounds rough. He clears his throat. “What?”

“Sir… Perhaps you would consider getting some rest? It _has_ been almost eighty hours since you slept more than an hour at once, and you haven’t eaten in nearly as much time.” The AI sounds disapproving, which makes Tony smile faintly. After all, he still has his bots. He hasn’t been truly alone for a while, in that sense.

The sound of whirring makes him turn, just in time for Dum-E to hand him a smoothie. Tony looks at it dubiously, noting its neon green colour.

“J?”

“It’s not safe, Sir.”

“Motor oil?”

“Dish soap, I’m afraid.”

Tony snorts and then sighs, setting the smoothie aside. He pets Dum-E, who’s cooing sadly, “Sorry buddy, but you know that’s no good for me.” The bot butts his head against Tony’s hand before whirring away, doubtlessly to attempt making another smoothie which will probably contain window cleaner or something. His creativity knows no bounds, which is actually quite a feat in and of itself, given his less-than-stellar programming.

“Kay so what am I looking at J?” He needs to focus on something else than Peggy’s death, if only to stop himself from wondering what the two super-soldiers will make of the footage he compiled for them.

“The last elasticities we attempted only yielded more unsatisfactory results, Sir. The runtime was slightly improved but failure still happens close to the two-minute mark. At this stage, further reduction of the elasticity would unfortunately prove too unstable to guarantee the safety of the compound.”

Tony rubs his hands over his eyes, feeling the exhaustion catch up to him. He looks again at the equations and diagrams, trying to figure out what else he could change to ensure that the experiment not result in the complete destruction of the Tower and, possibly, a good chunk of New York City.

“Mhm okay let me just… What if we changed the curvature instead? Like… here, right here. Decrease the slope a little - no, less than that - yeah there you go. Try that for me, will you?”

The sound of the door to the workshop opening takes his attention away from his distracted observation of the numbers running in front of him as JARVIS performs the simulation.

Now. There are very few people who have the codes necessary to access his workshop without needing JARVIS’ approval, and even fewer who know that they do.

The only person who fits both criteria that Tony can think of at the moment is Rogers.

Which is quite not good because Tony’s armor is in shambles today, and he really isn’t up to deflect the Captain’s earnestness right now. He was hoping the pictures and footage would keep them occupied long enough for him to have more than a few hours to regroup. Damn it.

He takes a second to close his eyes and breath in, wrapping the tatters of his walls around him like a cloak, hoping that’ll be enough to get him through the few minutes it’ll probably take to kick Cap out. Stubborn prick.

But the voice that rings out isn’t Rogers.

“So you gonna say hi or what?” A pause. “You know Pep, I’m pretty sure we raised him better than this.”

Tony whirls around, a smile breaking upon his face as he sees Rhodey drop his duffel by the door before walking towards him, arms wide open and a grin on his face. Pepper is right next to him, smiling slightly, and it takes all the self-control he’s painstakingly developed as an adult not to run straight to them.

He didn’t think they’d find the time to come to him.

Tony’s still probably too quick in taking the few steps necessary to stumble into Rhodey’s arms, but he doesn’t care. He feels Pepper run her hand through his hair as he closes his eyes and breathes in his oldest friend.

Tony hadn’t known how strung up he was until he realizes he’s shaking, coming apart at the seams.

Rhodey’s arms tighten around him and Pepper steps up behind him, until he’s wrapped in the embrace of his two best friends. It’s the warmth he’s surrounded in and the sound of two heartbeats that allow him to finally let go for the first time in three days.

Rhodey kisses him on the temple and whispers soothingly, “Shhh, you’re okay, we’ve got you.” Pepper’s fingers are still running through his hair.

He won’t cry, and they know this. He won’t talk either, and they also know this. Most of all, he won't drink. But he’ll allow them to hold him for now, and he knows that later they’ll go to his room with him, and he’ll go to sleep surrounded by the two of them, because they’re his family and they’ve always been there for him. 

At the end of the day, family is the people you choose. The people who choose you right back. Tony can’t even remember how he could have possibly thought he was alone.

\---

It’s been amazing to get to see Peggy after the war, home safe and sound. She was such a vibrant, strong woman, full of life and energy. Knowing that she remained that way, after living through the horrors of WWII, gives Steve unrestrained joy, and he can’t help but feel grateful for the fact that she endured, found ways to be happy.

It’s pretty obvious that she and Howard remained close after they came back stateside; Peggy was clearly a big part of Tony’s life as a child. At least until he was 13. After that, JARVIS doesn’t have any photos or footage of Peggy. Steve wonders if she and Howard had a falling out. He also can’t help but wonder where Tony’s mother was during all these years. They’ve seen very few pictures which include her. And even when she’s there, she seems removed from the situation, with a blank look on her face and a faraway smile. She never touches Tony.

He’s asked JARVIS about some of the things he’s noticed, only for the AI to tell him in no uncertain terms that he’ll have to talk to Tony directly if he wants answers to those questions.

When he’d woken up, he’d asked and been told that Peggy never had her own family: the people he spoke to at her funeral confirmed that she’d dedicated her life to SHIELD. Nevertheless, she was obviously very attached to Tony as a child. They’ve seen countless photos of young Tony by Peggy’s side, most often looking up at her with admiration in his eyes as she appeared to laugh at his antics.

There’s also many videos of the two of them in a room that looks nothing like Tony’s workshop today but is undoubtedly a lab. In those, Tony is often talking a mile minute, excitedly explaining things which Steve doesn’t really understand but can still tell are quite advanced for anyone, never mind someone Tony’s age. Peggy is always listening attentively, asking perfectly-timed questions that help refocus Tony when he goes off on random tangents.

It makes Steve smile to know that someone loved and understood tiny Tony enough to try and keep up with him.

The footage they’re watching now is from Tony’s seventh birthday. Peggy had brought him a cake, and set up a camera to film him blowing out his candles. He’d shown Peggy the plans for his newest invention, a dog-like robot programmed to identify unusual movement patterns and thus warn against intruders, while she cut the cake. Tony had wolfed down a huge slice while Peggy chided him for his table manners: he’d stuck his tongue out in response, asking for another piece with puppy-dog eyes. That was when Peggy had gotten a dangerous look in her eyes and attacked.

Steve can’t help the soft smile he knows he’s sporting as he watches.

_Tony is giggling, face hidden behind his hands and large brown eyes bright with happiness as Peggy tickles him into submission. They’re on the carpet now, schematics forgotten on the coffee table._

_Tony snorts with laughter as Peggy targets a particularly sensible spot just under his ribs, before begging for mercy. Peggy lets him go with a smile on her face, ruffling his hair and declaring it time for a truce._

_She places a light kiss on Tony’s forehead as she gets up, causing the child to blush._

_“Are you thirsty?”_

_Tony nods, still trying to catch his breath. His eyes trail after Peggy as she leaves the room and he’s smiling, looking for all the world like he’s trying to commit the moment to memory._

_That’s when Howard comes in._

_He’s not walking straight, and he looks to be in a bad mood. His eyes zoom in on Tony where he’s still sitting on the floor with a smile on his face, which disappears as soon as he spots his father approaching._

The image freezes. Steve waits for a moment but nothing happens.

“JARVIS? Why did it stop?”

“The rest of this footage does not display Margaret Carter.” There’s an odd quality to JARVIS’ voice, almost like he’s daring Steve to ask.

Steve frowns, “But the camera kept recording?”

There’s a purposeful-sounding pause before JARVIS answers. “It did, yes.”

“Did Stark tell you _not_ to let us see footage which doesn’t have Peggy?”

“Sir did not.” The tone of JARVIS’ voice makes it clear that Bucky asked the right question. Steve looks up at him, and raises an eyebrow. Bucky’s mouth twists ruefully.

“Can you keep playing it then, please?”

The video resumes.

_“What are you doing on the floor?”_

_The words are harsh, mean._

_Tony’s face visibly shutters. He gets up, dusting off his knees as he does, but doesn't answer._

_Howard stops as he walks by the table, looking down to where the schematics are still laid out. His brows rise and a sneer comes upon his lips. Without looking at Tony, he motions him forward._

_“Come here, boy. Explain this to me, mhmm? I_ must _be wrong, because this looks like you’re trying to build a robot that looks like a dog. Now, my son, a_ Stark _, wouldn’t even_ think _of coming up with something so frivolous. Right?”_

_Tony bites his lip, seems to hesitate. He clears his throat, an action that seems far too mature for a seven year old child. “The shape of the robot won’t affect its functionality, I swear. I just thought maybe I could make it both useful and fun.”_

_That was obviously the wrong thing to say._

_“FUN?” Howard bellows, slamming the glass he’s holding down on the table. Amber liquid sloshes. “Do you think I created Stark Industries so that my son and sole heir could one day build things that are FUN?”_

_Tony doesn’t say anything, blinking furiously._

_“I asked you a question.”_

_Tony lowers his eyes, mutters, “no, sir.”_

_“I can’t hear you, speak up when you talk to me, boy.”_

_Eyes still down, Tony’s voice is louder as he repeats, “No, Sir.”_

_“That’s right.” Howard suddenly grabs the schematics and starts ripping them apart, letting the pieces fly to the ground, uncaring of the distressed look that comes upon Tony’s face as he watches with wide, shining eyes. “I want a new version by tomorrow morning, and this one better fit my actual specifications, are we clear?”_

_“But today is my-”_

_Howard backhands Tony so hard that the child drops to the floor._

_“Don’t talk back to me.”_

_Tony doesn’t say anything else, staying silent and still as Howard shakes his head at his son before turning away and stumbling out of the room, muttering something about disappointment under his breath._

_Tony gets up slowly. There’s a tear running down his cheek. His wipes at it furiously, whispers “Stark men don’t cry.” He says it like a mantra, like he’s repeating someone else’s words. Like he’s been repeating those words to himself for years._

_He’s breathing deeply and almost-but-not-quite evenly as he picks up the pieces of paper that are strewn across the room. He carefully places them in a drawer of the coffee table before taking another deep breath. He rubs at his face where Howard hit him, wincing, before walking over to the carpet and sitting back down._

_The image winks out, but not before a carefully constructed fake smile can be seen coming up on Tony’s face as the sound of Peggy’s voice rings out, saying something about milk._

Steve can’t help but think that if he hadn’t seen what had happened just moments before, that smile would have fooled him. He wonders if Bucky is thinking the same thing as both of them stay silent, processing what they’ve just witnessed.

Eventually, JARVIS throws a new image up on the screen. This one is a picture of Tony and Peggy baking. Tony is covered in flour, the lighter flakes obvious against the dark grain of his hair, and Peggy is clearly trying to hide her laughter at the affronted look on the child’s face.

Steve can’t focus on it though, because all he can see is Howard striking his son, the image repeatedly playing in slow-motion before his eyes.

“JARVIS, can you just,” Bucky pauses, swallows loud enough for Steve to hear from where he’s been snuggled up to him on the couch, “uhm, can you stop for a minute, please?”

“Of course Sergeant. Let me know when you wish to resume.”

Bucky takes his arm from Steve’s shoulder, clasps his hands together on his knees. Steve knows him well enough to understand that this is an attempt to get a hold of the anger that must be coursing through his veins right now. He lifts his head off of the other man’s shoulder and sits back up.

Inhale, exhale. “So let me ask you this, what the _fuck_ happened to Stark senior after you crashed? Mhmm?”

Yup, Bucky sounds furious, tightly reined in. Steve knows how he feels. The man he just saw, the man who spoke and acted like that towards his _seven year old son_ , that’s not the man he knew. He doesn’t know anything about that man, he feels, except that he was a _bully_. He’s pretty sure he hates that man.

Sure, Howard wasn’t perfect, far from it, but he was not a mean person. He was not a _violent_ person.

“I don’t, I don’t know.”

Steve is thinking back to the first time he met Tony, the quip he made about Howard. He thinks he understands Tony’s reaction better now, the way he’d lashed out with an angry look his eyes.

“Buck, I… Remember when I told you that Tony and I had a rough beginning?”

“Yeah?”

“The first time we met, I told him-” Steve swallows. It hurts his throat to do so, “-I told him he wasn’t half the man his father was.”

A sharp intake of breath to his left, “Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Steve-”

“Buck, I think I really messed things up. He just- he never _told me_.”

“Come on, Stevie, how do you even tell someone something like that.”

“I know, I just- _gosh_. Do you- you don’t think he actually believes I meant that, right? I-” Steve can't say anything else, his throat is all clogged up.

“I don’t know, sweetheart. Maybe. From what I’ve learned about Stark in the time I’ve been here, he doesn’t seem like the most self-aware person.”

A pause as Steve processes that.

“Wait. You don’t think he _agrees_ , do you?”

Bucky’s silence speaks legions. Steve drags his hands through his hair, reliving every discussions he’s had with Tony since that fateful night they spent together. He can’t help but wonder if that’s what Tony thinks of him and Bucky, if he believes Steve is with Bucky because he thinks Bucky is worth more than Tony. That’s _not_ what this is. 

How in the hell is he supposed to go about making Tony understand that, though? Is there even anything left to fix?

“Buck, I don’t-” he chokes on his words, feeling dangerously close to tears.

“Hey, Stevie, it’s okay," Bucky places a hand on his neck, rubbing his thumb soothingly, "we’ll figure something out, yeah? You and I, we’ve always been good at that, haven’t we?”

Steve knows they have, but he wonders if that will be enough this time. He doesn’t even know what he wants anymore. He feels split in half. He’s not supposed to love two people at once.

Right?

\---

Bucky is in the living room drinking coffee, trying to finish processing the shit he and Steve watched yesterday. He’s not stupid, he knows Steve has feelings for Stark. It’s clear as day on the punk’s face. Hell if he knows what the fuck that means for them though. He knows Steve loves him, knows it like he knows the sun rises in the east. But for the first time, he finds himself wondering if that’ll be enough. 

He himself still doesn’t know what to make of the genius, he hasn’t spent all that much time with him. So Bucky figures he needs to put more effort into getting to know the man, if only to work out whether Steve’s feelings are reciprocated. And then he’ll take it from there. Yeah, that seems sensible. He snorts to himself. Since when has he been the sensible one? Oh well, needs must.

He’s almost done with his cup when two people he doesn’t know walk into the room. One of them is a woman, quite tall with red hair, an intelligent look about her. The other is a man, obviously military from the way he holds himself, also quite-smart looking.

They both start a bit when they see him, and there’s an awkward pause where no one quite seems to know how to proceed from here.

The woman breaks the stalemate when she walks towards him, extending a hand. “Sergeant Barnes, delighted to meet you. I’m Pepper Potts, the CEO of Stark Industries.”

Ah, yes, Steve’s told him about her. Her grip is strong and self-assured, “James, please. I figure any friend of my landlord's should call me by my God-given name.”

Ms. Potts seems appreciative of his answer, “Only if you call me Pepper, then.”

He nods, and turns to the man, who’s eyeing him speculatively. 

“Colonel Rhodes, an old friend of Tony’s.”

“Sir,” Bucky snaps off a salute.

The colonel salutes back, but follows with “There’s no need for that between people who know Tony personally, is there? Just call me Rhodes and I’ll stick to Barnes for now, sound about right?”

“Absolutely si-, Rhodes.”

The other man smiles indulgently at his fumbling, before walking away to fix himself a coffee.

Bucky feels someone’s eyes on him, so he turns back to Ms. Po-Pepper. She’s indeed looking at him, smiling slightly.

“How have you found staying at the tower, James? Got everything you need?”

“It’s been real swell, to tell you the truth. Stark isn't really one to do things by halves, is he?”

She laughs, “No, that, he is not.”

“Is he okay?” Bucky can’t help but ask, still reeling from seeing a child version of the man being hit by his father.

“He’s fine, he’s just taking some time to deal with things.”

Things meaning Peggy’s death. Right. He doesn’t really know what to say to that so he elects to stay silent, gulping what’s left of his coffee to avoid the all-knowing stare of the woman in front of him. She’s a bit intimidating, to be honest. Bucky gets the distinct sense that he should never, ever, cross her.

He’s saved by Rhodes returning, wordlessly handing a second cup to Pepper. Neither of them say anything for a minute, and Bucky feels like he’s being tested for something.

“So Barnes, you planning on joining active duty with the Avengers any time soon? Tony’s told us that the Captain has made it clear you have a spot if you want.”

Bucky knows the question must be well-meaning, nothing but proper curiosity, but he can’t help but chafe a bit at what he guesses is probably an evaluation of the threat level he poses.

“What’s it to you?”

Rhodes’ eyebrows rise slightly, but he doesn’t seem overly surprised by the aggressive tone of Bucky’s response. Pepper sits down on the couch next to them, looking back and forth between the two men like she’s compiling notes in her mind.

“I generally make it a point to know about the people who could be tasked with watching Tony’s six on the field.”

And that’s, that’s fair really, is what it is. Bucky can understand that impulse. He’d made it his mission to learn everything there was to know about Steve’s team, back in the day. So he swallows his irritation down, and figures he might as well go for broke.

“I’ve been seriously thinking about it yeah, I figure it might be the best way for me to make something good out of the decades I spent as the Winter Soldier.”

More speculative looks, tinged with what could almost be approval this time. It’s obvious that the two of them are genuinely looking to make sure that Stark’s safe. Knowing what he now knows of Stark’s childhood, he’s actually glad the man has people watching out for him. Still.

“So do I get brownie points for being honest or is that not how this works?”

Just because he understands the impulse to mitigate threats, doesn’t mean Bucky’s ever been one to take things lying down. From the way that Pepper snorts with laughter and Rhodes chuckles, the hint of challenge in his tone gets his point across.

The colonel takes a sip of his coffee before saying, “You’re alright, Barnes.”

Pepper hums but doesn’t say anything else, and Bucky feels it’s about time he make his exit, lest he loses his advantage. 

He clears his throat, “Well, you both have a good day now.” He’s laying the accent on thick, and he’s satisfied by the sparkle of amusement he sees in both of their eyes.

Tipping his head to the two of them, he walks out of the room, refusing to look back and betray his nerves.

As soon as he’s in the hallway, out of sight, he stops and rests his head against the wall, taking a minute to rid his muscles of the tension that gradually built up during that conversation. He’s pretty sure he passed the test, but damn, those two don’t give much away. He hopes he did, because he’s darn sure he’s gonna need them on his side if he wants a real shot at getting to know Stark better.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As a bonus, and because it has been quite a while since I updated, here is the first scene of what was gonna be the next chapter. 'Tis the battle scene I promised.
> 
> I apparently like to make my readers suffer, so this ends with a ~pretty big~ cliffhanger. Sorry not sorry?
> 
> LOVE YOU, don't give up on me <3
> 
> Also, LOTR. *heart eyes*

“Anyone else feel like we’re fighting an evil version of Babar?”

Steve hears Clint snicker on the line and respond to Tony that, “Yeah I don’t think I’m ever going to think back on my childhood afternoons the same way again.”

Thor, who came back on world just in time for New York to get attacked, _again_ , asks, “WHO IS THIS BABAR YOU SPEAK OF? HAS HE NOT ALWAYS BEEN AN AGENT OF THE DARKNESS LIKE HE IS TODAY?”

Honestly. Steve sometimes wishes for the Howling Commandos back. Yeah they were a rowdy bunch too but they were _army_ guys, they at least knew how to do battle quietly and efficiently _before_ letting loose.

He knows no one is going to heed this order so it’s with a resigned voice that he pleads with them to cut the chatter, only for everyone to ignore him. Again. 

“Babar is an elephant Thor, he’s a character in books for children. Steve used to read about him to the kids next door when he watched them for our neighbors.”

It’s the first battle for Bucky since he’s been approved for active duty, but you wouldn’t know it from the banter he’s been a part of ever since they left the tower. It's interesting to see his fighting style in a real combat situation. Steve can tell that he's appropriated some of the Winter Soldier moves into his old technique, more clearly today than he's been able to during training. Bucky’s told him that it's one of the ways he's found to try and reconcile his past with the man he's trying to become today.

Seeing it in action, Steve thinks he understands what he meant. He's Bucky, but he's not the Bucky from before. He's a Bucky who's taking the trauma he went through and owning it, re-appropriating for himself. He wonders what it means about him that he still struggles with the idea of piloting a plane. Maybe he's been doing it wrong. 

Shaking his head to get rid of the kind of introspection that has no place on a battlefield, Steve sighs audibly, knowing he doesn’t have a chance in hell to get anyone to listen to him if Bucky is ignoring his orders. Not wanting to be shown off though, he still takes the time to remind them to use codenames, but gets interrupted by Thor, who seems aggravated at the idea that Babar’s memory is being tainted by the beast they’re fighting.

“HIS TALES OF GLORY MUST BE MARVELOUS INDEED IF THEY ARE TOLD TO CHILDREN. WE MUST ABSOLUTELY DO AWAY WITH THIS EVIL BEAST SO THAT THE LEGACY OF THE BABAR IS NOT SCORNED. CAPTAIN, HOW SHOULD WE PROCEED?”

Steve decides to ignore pretty much everything about that sentence, and takes a second to think back to what he’s seen of the beast’s movements so far, quickly going through the maneuvers they’ve practiced in training lately. They figured out quickly that the hits they were landing didn’t have any effect on the thing, so they’ve retreated to assess their options. Steve’s shield didn’t even get through its hide, and he doesn’t want Tony to launch any of his mini-missiles until they’ve exhausted every other avenue, since he knows that those will do significant damage to the surrounding area. He’d rather perform a targeted strike, so that the Avengers aren’t blamed for destruction of public property for once.

“Hawkeye and Winter, I need you to stay up high for now, but be ready to join us on the ground if it seems like we can’t neutralize it from above. Iron Man, keep flying around in circles, but change up the flight path every time, and look for vulnerable spots. Widow, wait on the ground until we’ve identified a target. Thor, can you hit it with a lightning bolt? I don’t think it’s gonna do much but one can always hope.”

Steve makes his way to one of the side alleys, where he still has a line of sight to the beast but is clear of Thor’s thunder, and looks around to make sure that everyone else has gotten clear too. It takes but a minute for Thor to call down a bolt of lightning, which envelops the monster but doesn’t seem to do it much damage. It doesn’t even stop walking, its heavy steps crushing through asphalt and making the windows of the surrounding buildings tremble.

“Cap, I’ve got what seems to be a thinner piece of hide at the back of the thing’s neck. I don’t know if it’ll take it down, but it’s worth a try, I think.”

“Okay let’s give it a shot. Widow, you’re up.”

Steve watches intently as Natasha runs towards the beast, only to bank right at the last minute and jump onto its leg, climbing up slowly but assuredly, in time with its steps.

He hears Tony’s low whistle on the line, “Hawkeye, you’re no longer this team’s honorary Legolas, I’m sorry to say. Widow, welcome to the game.”

“You break my heart, Stark.” Clint’s sarcastic tone could cut glass, Steve thinks absently as he rolls his eyes.

Natasha is but a small figure at this point, but Steve could swear she’s rolling his eyes, too.

He’s surprised when Bucky chuckles on the line, before declaring triumphantly, “So much for an evil version of Babar, it’s a fucking oliphant we’re up against.”

He figures it’s another one of those references he doesn’t understand, but that Bucky does now that he’s been spending some time with Tony, mostly watching movies and getting caught up on everything else pop culture. Things have been getting better between the three of them since Peggy’s funeral. After he and Bucky thanked Tony for providing them with photos and videos of Peggy, the engineer started being less on the defensive all the time, less quick to walk out of a room whenever Bucky or Steve try talking to him.

Needless to say, neither of them has mentioned the scene they saw with Howard.

Tony’s even made them a list of things they should catch up on, movies and music and the like, but Steve hasn’t gotten a chance to get through more than the first couple of items so far. The paperwork he has to fill out for SHIELD as team leader has taken up a lot of his time, and he also knows that Bucky needs to do things without him, so he’s been more than happy to give him his space. It just means that now he really is the only one who doesn’t understand these jokes.

Natasha has gotten up to the oliphant(?)’s neck by now, and she is quick to strike with a Widow’s bite in what Steve knows will have been the center of the weak spot that Tony identified. The beast raises an arm as if to swat at its neck, where it must have felt a sting, but Natasha has already launched off of its back, completing a few somersaults on her way down. She lands on her feet and immediately breaks into a run to get clear of its grasp.

They all watch, waiting for the thing to stumble or otherwise show that it was affected, but it just keeps on walking.

“So… I’m pretty sure it’s immune to electricity. I took some readings when Widow struck it, after seeing it brush off Thor’s lightning, and it seems that its cells are absorbing the electrons, rather than being damaged by them.”

Steve processes Tony’s information and figures their best shot is to hit it hard, right where it hurts. They might get lucky and crush its spine.

“Winter-”

“Yeah, I’m on it.”

He watches as Bucky scales down the building he’d been perched on top of, a few yards ahead of the beast. Bucky waits until it’s right under him and jumps, left arm extended. The impact is immediate, and Bucky’s hand punches through the monster’s hide. Steve hears the sound of bone crushing under the unyielding force of metal. Bucky doesn’t stop there though: he gets a hold of the thing’s spine and _pulls_ , causing the beast to finally stumble and slowly crumble to the ground, with Bucky standing tall on its back, only jumping off at the last second.

With a resounding crack, the monster’s head hits the street, and it stops moving.

Bucky has its spine in his hand, standing eerily still with his gaze fixed on the corpse.

Nobody says anything for a few seconds, and then Tony’s voice rings over the coms, breaking the tension. It’s always Tony. “Is it weird that this kind of violence turns me on?”

Steve rolls his eyes, and Clint whines, “No one wants to know what turns you on Stark. Ugh, I need to bleach my brain now. I had other plans for my post-battle adrenaline rush, Jesus.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything, which is weird, because he's gradually become the first one to snark at Tony when he says shit like that.

In fact, he still hasn’t moved. He still hasn’t let go of the thing’s _spine_.

Steve starts walking towards him, wanting to know why he’s taking so long to shake it off. As he gets closer, he can’t help but notice that Bucky’s face is blank, devoid of emotion. He’s starting to get the feeling that something may have gone seriously wrong.

Bucky’s eyes suddenly snap up, and Steve stops walking, stomach churning. Because even though he hasn’t seen those eyes in weeks, he knows exactly who they belong to. And he knows that it’s not Bucky looking at him right now. It’s the Winter Soldier.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wooh update! 
> 
> So we've got the Asset making an appearance. It's not too drawn out, because I didn't want to make him a central character/personality in this fic, but I felt it was important to address the fact that Barnes is still dealing with what happened to him, and whether to possibly try and integrate that into his ~new~ life or ignore it altogether. The other reason the Asset shouldn't appear again (although who knows maybe I'll change my mind) is because the trigger for the shift is identified and will be subsequently removed.
> 
> Cause Tony's awesome.
> 
> This chapter is gonna open the door for the Bucky and Tony thing to start developing, so stay tuned for the next chapter ;)
> 
> As always, thank you for the continued support <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There aren't trigger warnings for this chapter, but just be aware that some aspects of Bucky's time as the Winter Soldier are discussed (i.e. non-consensual body modification).
> 
>  
> 
> Also, gotta give credit where it's due: *manboobs* totally came up with the Winter's ARM-y project name hehe

The Asset doesn’t take his eyes off the blond man, even though he’s stopped walking. He knows the man somehow, knows he’s not a threat, but that doesn’t mean there’s no one else around who might want to punish him for a botched job. He makes himself let go of the spine his left hand is still holding, knowing that trying to delay the punishment only makes it worse. He doesn’t move more than that though, waiting for his orders.

The blond man speaks, “Thank you for taking care of that for us.” The Asset is surprised, although he doesn’t show it. He’s never been thanked for completing a mission before. “We’re going to head back to the tower now, I think you should come with us.” The Asset wonders at the suggestion, when he’s used to following strict orders. He also wonders who else the blond man is talking about. Then he remembers that he doesn’t have to wonder anything, because he’s just a weapon, so he gives the man a sharp nod.

The other man seems to relax minutely at this: he must have been told that the Asset is really dangerous. He hasn’t attacked a handler since the last time they put him under though, so he doesn’t really know why the blond man seems afraid of him. He’s learned his lesson.

He follows the man to the jet, sitting down and strapping himself in, watching as a few other people get in as well. He doesn’t recognize any of them, although he has to admit that there is a certain familiarity to the group, like he subconsciously remembers the way they move. He figures he must have worked with them before, on missions that have since been wiped from his mind. He knows that none of them will damage him, since he’s such a valuable weapon, so he leans his head back, figures he might as well get some rest before he has to debrief.

His arm is hurting. He clenches and unclenches his hand several times, trying to get the servos running smoothly. It doesn’t help. He looks at it critically, trying to see if any of the plates are bent, but he can’t see anything. He figures that the pain isn’t going away anytime soon, since it’ll be a while before he’s sent to maintenance, so he grits his teeth and is about to close his eyes to try and get some sleep when he feels someone’s eyes on him. He looks around and notes that the man who is wearing a suit of armor has taken the faceplate off, and is now staring at him, eyes narrowed and mouth pursed, like he’s trying to work out a problem.

The Asset gets this urge to sneer at the man, tell him to fuck off, but he clamps down on it, knowing that he would get punished for acting out. So he just stares back, willing his face to remain blank, hopes it’ll make the other man uncomfortable enough to look away. The faceplate comes down, and the Asset feels strangely satisfied, his lips trying to curl up in what would be an arrogant smirk if he let it. He’s still got it. He doesn't remember what _it_ is but he thinks it was important to him. Before. 

He crosses his arms, almost in defiance of the dull pain that’s still coursing through the metal, and finally lets his eyes close.

\---

Tony is reading the results from the diagnostic he just had JARVIS run on Barnes’ arm. He swears under his breath. If he’s understanding correctly what this means, and he’s pretty sure he is cause, you know, he’s a genius, he thinks it’s high time he got Barnes his update. He decides not to say anything until they get to the tower, because he suspects this isn’t going to go well. The Soldier shows no signs of receding and he hates even the _idea_ of not getting Barnes’ consent before doing anything to the arm.

The Quinjet lands on the tower, and there seems to be a general unwillingness to move as the landing bay doors open. Eventually, after Steve throws them a look, Clint and Natasha get up and walk out. Thor flew back by himself, so it’s just the three of them left now. Tony lifts his faceplate, readying himself for what he has to say.

He can see from here that Steve is making a conscious effort to keep his breathing even, and his hands relaxed. The Soldier’s eyes are open again, but he isn’t moving. He seems to be waiting for orders.

“Let’s head inside Cap.”

Steve gives a shallow nod, swallowing before looking at the Soldier. “Can you come with us, please?”

Tony can tell that the Soldier isn’t used to suggestions, because he gets this little furrow in his brow like he’s waiting for someone to give him an actual order. Still, he follows them.

Tony is the first to walk in and he turns around before they reach the elevator doors, putting a hand forward to stop Steve.

“We need to talk.”

Steve gets this angry look on his face, like he expects Tony to forbid the Soldier from entering the tower. Tony sighs, because honestly, when was the last time he gave an indication that any of Barnes’ personalities were unwelcome here?

“Look, I had JARVIS run a diagnostic on Barnes when we were on the plane, and I’m pretty sure I know why he reverted to the Soldier out there.”

Steve visibly braces himself, breathes out. He doesn’t say anything though, waiting for Tony to explain.

“I think the arm is the problem. From what I can see, there seem to be capsules embedded in the upper arm that release neurotoxins once he passes a certain force threshold, which he hit when he punched through the thing’s spine.”

Steve’s eyes widen, “HYDRA?”

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure that’s one of the guarantees they had in place against the Soldier turning on them. You know, like if he ever tried to fight them, there was a failsafe to ensure that they could subdue him quickly. I’m guessing the sudden chemical imbalance is what caused the shift.”

Tony feels awful, talking about Barnes in the third person like that, when he’s standing right in front of him. But he can see that the Soldier isn’t going to react to anything he says, although he does seem to be listening to him intently. Still, Steve is the only person the Soldier ever responds to when he’s being run by his programming, so Tony needs the Captain to take charge here. But.

“What do we do?”

Rogers is looking at Tony like he has all the answers, like he needs to be given a direction to run in, and Tony’s not sure he can handle that level of responsibility. It’s obvious he’s the only one who even has an _inkling_ of where to go from here though, so he figures he needs to buckle the fuck up and get shit done.

“I think we need to remove the arm.”

He sees the Soldier stiffen out the corner of his eyes, but he looks straight at Steve as he says this. Steve, whose eyes widen and whose look turns unsure.

“I don’t know if…” Tony stays silent, letting Steve work through the implications of what he’s just said. “I mean, Bucky should be the one to decide that.”

“Yeah. He should. But he can’t right now and I have no idea how long the effect of the neurotoxin is gonna last.”

Steve seems to mull this over, obviously weighing the pros and the cons of modifying Barnes’ body without him having a say in it. Tony waits him out, already having to decided to respect whatever his decision is gonna be. He’s not the one who knows Barnes best here.

“We wait it out.” Steve has a stubborn look his eyes, his jaw jutting out, like he’s expecting Tony to fight him on this. But Tony simply nods and says, “Alright. I’m gonna go then, because we all know I could trigger that man with nothing more that my rugged charm.” He winks.

He knows this is probably not the time for inappropriate humour, but he can’t find his filter. Oh wait, that’s right, he’s never had one.

“Find me when Barnes is back, so I can tell him about his options.”

Steve’s look of gratitude makes something clench in Tony’s chest. He’s used to disappointment and disdain, but positive reactions always throw him for a loop, still.

He tamps down on it, and throws a rueful smile towards the Soldier, “See you on the other side, buddy,” before instinctively walking towards the bar, only to remember that Pepper has thrown all his alcohol away, something he’s never been more thankful for than right now. 

He hears the elevators doors open, and when he turns around, he sees that Steve and the Soldier have already gotten in the elevator, with Cap talking in a low voice. It’s just as well, he still doesn’t really want anyone to know that he quit drinking. He shudders at the thought that some of them might try and be supportive. This is a fight he wants to win on his own. Pepper’s help doesn’t count, she knows the darkest parts of him already, and has never shied away from them.

He scrubs his face and tells JARVIS to get project Winter’s ARM-y up and running in the workshop so that he can finish working out the few kinks he’d noticed when he rendered the first prototype. It’s going to be a long night.

*

It seems like the neurotoxins were a quick fix, with the sole purpose of getting the Soldier to stand down while they could subdue him in a more permanent manner - Tony shudders to think of what that must have looked like - because it’s barely been a whole 24 hours before the Soldier recedes.

For once, Tony hasn’t been using the feeds to spy on his teammates: he knows because Barnes shows up and requests access to his workshop pretty much as soon as he ‘comes back,’ still wearing his battle armour. Seems like Steve didn't wait to talk to him.

He grants Barnes access and steels himself, just in case he’s about to get chewed out for running diagnostics on him without his consent. But Barnes simply walks up to him, and looks at him for a couple of seconds, not saying anything, until, “Steve says you have a way to make sure that what happened yesterday doesn’t happen again.”

“I mean, it’s not a 100% guarantee, but I have a pretty good idea of what the problem is, yeah.”

“Tell me.” And it sounds like an order, but Tony can read between the lines and he knows how to recognize someone desperately asking for help.

So he talks.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OKAY SO. First off, let me apologize for the time it took to get this up. I'm like currently figuring out my next internship and also on holidays with the extended family so I basically have no time to myself.
> 
> I am also desperately trying to flesh out the characters and the plot as I come to the end, because this fic is my baby and I want it well-cared-for and shiny and well-balanced. And just like pretty. This makes sense in my mind, I swear. 
> 
> So it's slow going.
> 
> I'm not trying to pull one over you either, so notice that the chapter count has gone up - this is because there were supposed to be two scenes in this chapter, but I just couldn't wait to update anymore so I split it and we've only got one scene here.
> 
>  
> 
> SO SO SO --> This scene is basically winteriron. You're welcome.
> 
> Next scene is gonna be stuckony in the kitchen with a happy Bucky, a sleep-deprived Tony, and a sweaty Steve (cause he just worked out, get your head out of the gutter). So, lots of potential ;)
> 
> OKAY BYE LOVE YOU TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An FYI - I'm like not 100% happy with this chapter, I feel like the dialogue is stilted in places still, so I might edit it later. It won't change the plot or anything, but yeah I'll probably be polishing stuff here and there eventually.

Bucky’s thinking back on the last few weeks as Tony tinkers with his arm, mumbling to himself about things Bucky doesn’t understand. He can’t pinpoint the specific moment when Stark became Tony, but he knows that if it wasn’t for the engineer he wouldn’t have been able to make peace with the Winter Soldier persona quite so well. He doesn’t feel like he’s being torn apart, pulled in two opposite directions, anymore. He doesn’t owe it all to Tony, but the billionaire definitely gave him a few of the keys he needed to get out of his head.

He stills remembers the day when he asked JARVIS for all the Winter Soldier footage he had, to try and get some closure, only to learn that he killed Tony’s parents. He knows Tony knows, because he’s asked JARVIS, who’s confirmed that Tony has seen the same footage he has.

He hasn’t brought it up yet, too scared of what Tony might say. And, even though he knows, rationally, that Tony would never do that, he’s afraid of the genius giving up on him and not finishing the arm once they have to acknowledge that elephant in the room.

Even with that sword of Damocles hanging over his head though, the workshop has become a safe place for him since Tony started working on giving him a new arm. _Tony_ ’s become a safe place.

Bucky’s pretty sure he’s falling in love with him. He definitely understands how Steve could. They haven’t talked about it since that day when Steve told him about spending the night with Tony, save for the non-conversation at the Gala, but Bucky isn't blind. And now that he’s starting to feel the same way, he knows they’ll have to address it soon. He’s waiting though, until the arm is done and there’s nothing pending between the three of them, so that they might be able to get a clean slate.

“Ooooookay I think we’re done.” Tony mumbles - really, there’s no other word for it - around the screwdriver he’s been chewing on for the last hour, oblivious to the fact that Bucky’s blood is furiously attempting to redirect south in response to his oral fixation. “How’s it feel?”

Bucky moves his fingers, flexes his hand into a fist, rotates his wrist. He can’t remember the last time the motions felt so smooth, never mind so painless. Even the full check-ups that HYDRA performed every time he’d come out of cryo hadn’t yielded this sort of flawless connection between the prosthetic and the rest of his body. Tony is looking at him intently, no doubt waiting to hear whether his work fulfills Bucky’s expectations, and probably expecting to be brushed off. 

“It’s...” Bucky exhales, and gives a tentative smile, “it’s perfect.”

“But?” Tony seems to pick up on the hesitancy in his voice, turning away as he discards the screwdriver and the various tools he’s been using to finish the repairs on Bucky’s arm. Knowing him, he’s already interpreted that small pause as criticism and a lack of appreciation. 

Bucky swallows, runs his hand over the back of his neck, figures he might as well go for broke.

“No it is, perfect I mean. I don’t… I don’t really get it though. Why you would do all this for me. I just,” he chuckles bitterly, “you should hate me, you know.”

They both know what he’s talking about, and the engineer does him the honour of not asking for clarification. Tony studiously looks away, chews on his lip, then seems to think better of it, and pins Bucky with an intense stare. It never fails to make him shiver, having all of Tony’s not-inconsiderable attention focused on him. 

“Why? Because a bunch of assholes brainwashed you into doing things you would never even have thought of, never mind considered, doing otherwise? No thanks. I’m a lot of things but I’d like to think a hypocrite isn’t one of them.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything to that, because it’s obvious from Tony's breathing that he isn’t done. He watches him close his eyes, sigh, rub his jaw. Open his mouth, only to close it. Run his tongue along his lower lip, bite it. Sigh again. Look back at Bucky.

“Look. I know a little bit about not being able to look at yourself in the mirror.”

Tony smiles self-deprecatingly, and his eyes gain the yards stare quality that means he’s running through the mental list of what he considers his many failings. Bucky forces himself to keep silent, refusing to interrupt this rare moment of Tony being sincere with him rather than hiding behind his oh-so-hateful mask.

“The difference between you and me?” Tony raises his eyebrows, starts to look a little challenging, as if daring Bucky to disagree with him on this.

“I was fully awake and aware when I designed weapons that went on to kill hundreds of thousands of people. And you don’t even want me to go into the details of the questionable decisions I made in my personal life.” Tony chuckles. It’s not a nice sound. “But you weren’t. You weren’t awake, and you definitely weren’t aware. So as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing to forgive. And don’t even talk to me about whatever fictitious reasons you’ve come up with for me to hate you. Like I said, not a hypocrite. And, well,” Tony smiles, one of those bitter, self-loathing, smiles that make Bucky want to punch every single person who’s even hinted that Tony wasn’t the genius, billionaire, philanthropist that they all know he is, “it was a rather fitting end for Howard, don’t you think?”

Bucky isn’t touching that one with a ten foot pole, so he settles for awkwardly patting Dum-E, who's been quietly watching the proceedings, poised to help should the engineer need it - he's still not fully comfortable around the bots, despite all the stories that Steve has told him about them. Bucky smiles slightly at Tony.

“You’re one of a kind, you know that?”

Tony’s cheeky smile returns, and he winks.

“Why I do know that, thank you. Now off you go, there’s some things I have to do for Pepper that I’ve been putting off and she’s terrifying when she’s angry so I would rather not tempt fate any longer than I already have.”

Moment over. Bucky knows when he’s being dismissed, but he’s never been one to bow down to adversity. He's also noticed how exhausted Tony is looking, like he's close to be running on fumes. He doesn't like it.

“How long has it been since you ate, Tony?”

Tony rolls his eyes and mumbles something that’s probably insulting.

Bucky gives him an unimpressed look and asks, “JARVIS?”

Tony splutters but it’s too late, “Sir hasn’t consumed anything other than coffee in close to thirty-two hours, Sergeant Barnes.”

“And since he slept?”

Tony scowls, “Okay you can stop now, you’ve made your p-”

The AI cuts in smoothly, “Sir last slept for an hour and thirteen minutes twenty-one hours ago.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow at Tony, impressed despite himself that the man hasn’t collapsed yet. Steve has told him that the engineer tends to keep odd hours and isn’t the best at things like feeding himself, but he didn’t know it was this extreme. He wants to believe that this is an isolated case, that Tony is only running himself ragged trying to finish the arm. But, well.

Tony who is now fully scowling, arms crossed in front of his chest, looking off to the side. He’s muttering about how he just _knew_ there was a conspiracy to prevent him from achieving greatness.

Bucky isn’t letting this fly. Someone has gotta start taking care of Tony, and it obviously isn’t going to be the man himself.

“You’re coming upstairs with me Tony. I’m going to get you some food, and then you’re going to catch a few hours of shuteye.”

Tony shakes his head, turns back to Bucky with an annoyed look on his face, “I just told you, there’s a bunch of things I’ve gotta do for Pepper. I don’t have time for this.”

“I don’t know Pepper that well, but I’m pretty sure she’d be the first one to drag you of the lab for food and sleep.”

Tony opens his mouth, only to close it back again. Bucky’s right, and they both know it. But before he can press his advantage, Tony gets this suspicious look on his face – God only knows the shit that goes through this man’s brain, honestly – and tilts his chin up, in a move that’s clearly aggressive.

“Just get out, Barnes. I have better things to do than get” – he sneers as he says this – “food and sleep. Jesus. I know you guys aren’t exactly used to redefining physics on a daily basis but I would think you can still understand what it means to be doing _important_ work.”

Bucky is far, far from impressed with Tony’s asshole act. If anything, it’s filled with too much vitriol to really offend. It even sounds like that douchebag Strange, whom Tony despises.

He doesn’t really know what Tony’s just thought of that made the walls go back up, but he doesn’t need much imagination to infer that the man’s just not that good at accepting care and affection. And boy does Bucky wanna have a few choice words with Howard right now. He can't help but think back to Tony as a kid, already scrambling to put up walls and pretend to be unaffected. Thinking no one cares.

Fuck that. He figures it’s time to stop asking and start telling.

“Alright Stark, here’s the deal: you’ve got two choices. Either you come with now, or I throw you over my shoulder and carry up there myself. You know I will.”

Tony’s face loses some of the cynicism and his eyes comically widen as he splutters around a protest, looking mortally offended.

Bucky stands his ground, gives him a few seconds to consider his options.

Finally, Tony throws up his hands and raises his eyes to the ceiling. He looks exasperated, but the corner of his mouth is twitching, like he finds Bucky’s steadfast determination to get him out of the lab amusing.

“Let’s go then.” Bucky motions to the door with his head, waiting for Tony to roll his eyes and get up, following him as they walk of the workshop.

Now, Bucky knows he’s not being exactly fair, and that Tony’s sleep deprived and probably starving, but he doesn’t know when he’ll next be able to get the engineer in an enclosed space with no means of escape, so he decides to take his chance as soon as the elevator doors close on them.

He doesn’t touch Tony, because he’s noticed that the other man rarely reacts well to physical contact that he doesn’t initiate himself. He simply cocks his head to the side and flexes his arm, rotating the wrist as he feels the well of sensation that the new servos are feeding his brain. 

Tony looks at him from the corner of his eye, something like a satisfied smile on his lips at seeing Bucky obviously enjoy the new arm.

“Thank you for this, Tony.” The engineer starts shrugging him off, but Bucky won’t let him. “No, I mean it. Anyone else would have written me off a thousand times by now, wouldn’t have bothered with the heap of trouble I’m likely to bring. Especially with what I did-” He stops himself, because this conversation isn’t about him.

He sees Tony clench his jaw out the corner of his eye, knows he has a few seconds left before the other man lectures him on self-worth - which, truthfully, won’t ever stop being ironic.

“I know you don’t think you’re a good man, but you are, Tony. You _are_. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, you’re one of the best men I’ve ever known. And I’m not just saying this because you gave me a new arm, ya know. So I just." Bucky sighs, not wanting to overdo it and scare the man away. "Thank you.”

Tony looks shell-shocked, staring at him with wide eyes and a tinge of red on his cheeks. Bucky isn’t really sure what to do with that look, but he knows he doesn’t want Tony to escape back to the lab as soon as the doors open, so he studiously looks away and gives the engineer time to collect himself.

Tony absently follows him to the kitchen, looking lost in thought and a little starry-eyed, but less like his systems have shut down, and more like he’s analyzing and processing.

Bucky feels the corner of his mouth lift up at that, in what he knows is a satisfied smile. He can’t help it, this went a hell of a lot better than expected.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, as teased in last chapter's summary, I meant to write a light, playful scene. Stuckony was supposed to be easy and fun banter here.
> 
> But, well, I think it's official: I don't seem to be able to write anything but angst.
> 
> This is Steve POV. It IS a kitchen scene with the three of them, but there's a fuckload of Steve introspection, on the one hand cause I'm trying to make the missing pieces fall into place for the polyamory to come into play, and on the other hand cause Steve is just a tortured soul, really.
> 
> Bucky's doing well, though. And Tony has like no idea what is even going on in either of the two super soldiers' heads - or hearts (ugh I just hurt myself with the cheesy).
> 
> More on Tony later ;) - stay tuned!
> 
> I hope you enjoy the read, cause there's quite a lot to unpack here.
> 
> Basically, at some point in the (near?) future, the three of them are going to have to find a way to do what they're worst at: communicate. Otherwise, shit ain't gonna happen.
> 
> So we'll see. But I have faith in my characters.
> 
> Hehe.
> 
> Thanks for the kudos, comments, and overall support. INSPIRE ME.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I introducing a praise kink? AM I? I don't know yet, okay. But maybe. Mayyyybe.

Steve is looking for a post-sparring snack in the kitchen - Thor didn’t hold back as much as usual today, and he’s feeling the strain in his muscles, although that will be gone in a few hours thanks to the serum - when Bucky walks in, looking pleased as punch with himself. Steve’s about to ask what’s got him in such a good mood when Tony trails in after him.

The engineer looks a little out of it, and is darting what could probably pass off as thoughtful glances to Bucky’s back if the exhaustion marring the engineer's face didn't make them look closer to bewildered instead.

Bucky spots him and his whole face brightens. Steve can’t quite help the way his heart clenches in his chest every time he sees evidence of Bucky’s love for him.

“Morning, Stevie.”

Bucky is fully smiling now, heading towards him with his left arm extended in front of him. He leans in and gives him a quick peck on the lips, before taking a step back and gesturing to his arm. “Look, Tony finished it!”

Steve whistles lowly as he takes in the prosthetic, shiny yet not blinding under the kitchen lights. He can barely hear the sound of the servos, and that’s only if he concentrates enough that he’s using his superhuman hearing. He can tell from the way that Bucky flexes fingers, wrists, and elbow, from the way he rotates his shoulder, that the articulations are just as smooth, if not smoother, than a flesh and blood arm.

No need to be a scientist to realize that this is a marvel of engineering. 

Steve looks up at Tony, words of thanks on his lips, but freezes at the look on the genius’ face.

Tony’s backed up a few steps, edging close to the door that leads to the hallway with the elevators. He’s staring at the two of them, at Steve’s hand wrapped around Bucky’s metal wrist, with something that Steve can’t help but think is a forlorn look on his face. 

As Steve watches, his face morphs into something akin to self-loathing, before shutting down and gaining a blank quality. Tony closes his eyes for a second, takes a visible breath.

When he opens his eyes back up, he looks up at Steve and catches him staring. Immediately, a small arrogant smile comes upon his face. He nods his head to Bucky’s arm, “I see the look on your face, Rogers. Of course the arm is perfect, I am the best after all.” He raises an eyebrow to punctuate the word best, but it sounds half-hearted at best, like he doesn’t really believe in what he’s saying.

Steve can’t help but think back to that footage they saw of child Tony. By spoken agreement, Bucky and he decided not to mention it to Tony for now. Or possibly ever. Both know how unpleasant exactly that conversation would be, and there is no need to rehash what must be painful memories for the engineer for their own peace of mind.

Steve doesn’t respond, his brain still trying to process the look he just caught on Tony’s face, but he sees Bucky roll his eyes before turning around to face Stark. When he sees where the other man is though, almost out of the room by that point as he’s been slowly walking away, he raises an eyebrow and _tssks_.

“Not so fast, Tony. Get back here, will ya.”

When Tony doesn’t move, looking like a deer trapped in the headlights, Bucky nonchalantly looks down to his metal arm, rotates the wrist, “I _will_ carry you over here and strap you down to a chair if I have to.”

Tony seems to believe Bucky, even though Steve knows his best friend would _never_ force someone to do something against their will, because he gets this angry look on his face, before sighing dejectedly at Bucky’s lack of give and walking towards the table. He throws himself into a chair with a sullen expression on his face, mumbling under his breath like a morose five year old who was just told he’d have to eat all his vegetables.

At the unimpressed look on the two soldiers’ faces, he just pouts. And let it never be said that Tony’s puppy-dog eyes aren’t effective. But, even though Steve would have given up and told him to do whatever he wanted by now, Bucky holds steady. Tony wrinkles his nose and blows out an irritable breath. He glares at Bucky.

“Fine Barnes. Have it your way. Feed me, then.”

Bucky smiles at the engineer, a sharp, predatory smile.

“That’s the plan. Why don’t you stay sitting right here and looking pretty, mhmm?”

And Steve does a double take at that because, yep, that’s Tony _blushing_ all of a sudden.

What.

Steve knows that they’d grown closer while working on the arm, but he hasn’t really had a chance to see what that looked like outside the workshop. That is, until now.

Tony is studiously looking at his hands, head bowed and cheeks still flushed, while Steve stands there and gapes in a manner that he assumes can only be extremely unattractive.

As though he can feel Steve staring, Tony looks up, and notes the look on Steve’s face. Just like two minutes ago, it’s like his whole face shuts down at once, any hint of real emotion scrubbed clean as his eyes take on a challenging glint. Like Steve’s the enemy here.

Steve feels a little sick at that. What did he do so wrong that Bucky is now allowed in, while he’s condemned to stand on the outside looking in, with Tony’s hackles rising whenever he so much as hints at talking to him about anything other than Avengers business?

Tony's the one who told him there was never anything there. He's the one who said that's all there was to it. Steve remembers those words as if the genius had said them this morning. They're branded in his mind. Along with the look on Tony's face at the time. Anger. Disgust. Exasperation. More anger.

Steve feels cold. He hasn’t had a chance to shower since his workout, and the sweat has cooled down by now.

He feels really cold.

He can’t help but shiver, feeling so alone there in the corner of the kitchen as he hears Bucky laugh at a joke that Tony just made about something Dum-E did this morning.

Bucky notices, asks, “You alright Stevie?”

“Yeah I’m good. Just a little hungry, Thor worked me over pretty good.”

Bucky smiles at that, “I’ll fix you something then, since I’m already cooking for the dumbass over there who can’t seem to get himself food unless someone threatens to whack him over the head for it.”

Steve fakes a laugh at that. It’s what’s expected of him. It sounds brittle to his own ears.

He doesn’t want to risk another look at Tony, tired of seeing the suspicious rejection in the engineer’s eyes. He knows he didn’t exactly do things right by the man when he brought Bucky back, but he was too exhausted at the time to think through the way he was trying to deal with Tony. He should never have even tried to ‘deal’ with him. He knows this now. Hindsight is 20/20.

And now, it’s like there’s this huge chasm between the two of them that Steve has no idea how to even start bridging. And God only knows where Bucky stands with regards to all this. To the mess he's made.

Steve leans back against the counter, choosing not to head over to the table quite yet, not wanting to intrude on Tony’s space. He closes his eyes, taking in the aromas coming from whatever Bucky’s cooking for them. He lets himself take a moment, imagine that this was a common occurrence. Bucky safe by his side, Tony out of the lab (getting food), and Steve happily relaxed - with his two best fellas present and accounted for.

It’s a dangerous dream.

One that he hasn’t even hinted at having with Bucky. Even less so with Tony.

Some days, he feels like he’s being torn apart and about to lose everything. Others, he wakes up convinced that the world he lives in today is full of opportunities just waiting there, for his taking.

He’s tried talking to Sam about all this, but it’s so jumbled up in his mind that he hasn’t managed to ask the one question that really matters: is this asking too much?

Shouldn’t he just be happy with what he has and not tempt fate? He’d done that before, tempted fate. Tried to keep Bucky for himself while pretending to the rest of the world with Peggy. Look how that had turned out.

Peggy had known, of course. She’d known before any ambiguity could even develop between the two of them. She’d been his best friend back then, both during basic training and in Europe. She’d been his tether to the real world when he assumed the mantle of Captain America, when he had to go and rescue Bucky from the hands of HYDRA. She’d been his person. And what a hell of a person she was. Steve has yet to meet anyone who could measure up to her in well, anything. He’s so blessed to have known her, loved her, been loved by her.

But now she’s dead. He still grieves, every day. It’s better though. Less suffocating. More wistful. Like he’s allowed, expected, to be happy after all. Like he might get the chance to be.

So the question he now asks himself is. That thing he hopes for, that he’s come to desire, that he finds himself dreaming of at night. That thing where he’s got both. Is it wrong?

For the life of him, he can’t even attempts to guess at the right answer.

He’s dragged from his thoughts by Bucky calling his name, “Stevie.”

He opens his eyes, blinks a few times. His head feels clouded, like he’s not quite fully awake. Catching a mere three hours of sleep a night for four days will do that to a person, even a supersoldier.

“Yeah.”

Bucky looks him over, seems to guess at his state of mental exhaustion. He does a tiny shake of his head, looks over at Tony who’s almost asleep on his plate himself, raises his eyes to the sky.

“Lord give me strength,” he mumbles under his breath. Then, louder, “Come take a seat before you fall over. Have some food, and then you and our resident genius over there can both grab a nap like the well-adjusted heroes you are.”

Although Bucky looks exasperated, his voice is fond, and it warms Steve up. Moments like this are why he doesn’t want to upset the equilibrium, doesn’t want to risk getting less than he bargained for. Why be greedy, when he has Bucky taking care of him, Bucky to take care of? He doesn’t need Tony. Right? Right.

Fuck. Even his inner voice doesn’t sound convinced.

He’s just so tired. 

He swallows down the food that Bucky made without really taking the time to enjoy it, stealing glances at Tony, who looks like he’s not tasting anything either. Both of them really do make quite the pair.

Bucky is just looking back and forth between the two of them, an amused smile on his lips and an affectionate look in his eyes.

He notices Steve looking at him, blows him a kiss and winks as he motions for Steve to finish his plate. Steve blushes and rolls his eyes. The wink definitely succeeded at what was probably its intended purpose: it set his thoughts down quite a different track.

Because all he can think of now is the last time Bucky winked at him, a couple days ago as he was coming out of the shower. Steve had looked up from unlacing his boots at exactly that moment, only to go slack-jawed, taking in Bucky’s form, naked from the waist up. 

Bucky had stepped over to him, bending down to just the right height to catch Steve’s lips with his, giving him a teasing kiss that did nothing to ease the way his cock was suddenly half-hard.

The other man had then walked away, a definite swagger to his hips as he headed to the wardrobe and opened its door, browsing through the clothes hanging there before selecting - surprise, surprise - a black pair of cargo pants. He’d then turned his head around, only his head, and raised an eyebrow at Steve still sitting there, at the foot of their bed. 

Steve had gotten the message and, blushing fiercely, had walked into the bathroom to give Bucky his privacy. He’d taken a really cold shower that day.

From the mischievous look in Bucky’s eyes, he’s remembering the same thing. Steve can feel his workout shorts starting to tent under the table as he can’t help but think back to Bucky’s hipbones, the smooth lines of his back, the defined muscles of his calves. Cruel man. Steve tries to frown at him, but it comes out playful, he knows. Were they alone right now, he wouldn’t be far from begging.

Bucky smirks, a satisfied look on his face as he crosses his arms, leans back on his chair, and says, “Finish your food, Stevie. Be a good boy.”

Steve’s face flames. Oh how he wants him. The teasing is so sweet. Just what Steve likes, and Bucky knows it.

He feels lightheaded, has to shake his head to try and get rid of the arousal that clouds over his thoughts right now. 

He's hurriedly wolfing down his food now, thinking no farther than the next few minutes as he imagines pushing Bucky against the door and passionately-

The sound of a chair scraping against the floor drags him out of his fantasy, and he looks up to see Tony getting up. The man’s eyes are dark and hooded, flicking rapidly between the two of them like he can’t decide who he’d rather not be looking at. He clears his throat, face carefully blank, “I’d better leave you two to it then. Pretty sure I’m not supposed to be here for this.”

Steve opens his mouth to argue, but Bucky cuts him off. “Shit, Stark, sorry. Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable." He clears his throat, darts a nervous glance at Steve. "Real sorry ‘bout that.”

Tony’s laugh is too high, sounds too forced. “Me? Uncomfortable? Please, I practically invented ill-timed PDAs.”

“PDA?” Steve mouths at Bucky. The other man shrugs back - he doesn’t know what that means either. Tony probably did that on purpose.

The genius is still talking, waves a hand aside, “Besides, it’s heartwarming to see that the sex drive doesn’t die with age, you know? Gives me something to look forward to in my old days.”

He winks at them, but it doesn’t come out playful like it’s probably meant to. It comes out sad. Steve feels his throat clog up. How is it that he always manages to hurt Tony.

Tony must see this on his face, because his lips curl up in what could be a sneer but isn’t quite yet, as if held back by pure force of will.

“Just make sure not to break anything, if you can avoid it. I may be a billionaire, but even for me the costs of having five Avengers live in the Tower do rack up after a while.”

It’s supposed to be insulting, cheap, but Steve knows him too well by now. From the look on Bucky’s face, they both do.

“Tony, I-”

Tony ignores Steve completely, throwing a “Thanks for the food, Barnes” over his shoulder as he walks out the room.

He leaves silence in his wake.

Tony Stark has a tendency to do that.

Neither Bucky nor Steve look at each other, letting the awkward silence endure. Until.

“Did he just call me an Avenger?”

Steve looks up to see Bucky looking bewildered, as if he can’t believe that anyone would grant him that title.

“Of course you’re an Avenger, Buck.”

Bucky finally looks back at him, eyes shining with an emotion that could be happiness but is too settled for that. If Steve had to name the expression on his best friend’s face, he’d say that he looks like a man who’s finally found his place.

Steve knows they’ll have to talk about Tony. To Tony. Soon.

But right now, this moment belongs to them, the two men out of time.

He extends his hand across the table, grasping Bucky’s and squeezing it, tight. 

They’ve found a home.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whelp. Shit happens.
> 
> Happy reading.  
> Looking forward to comments <3
> 
> A big s/o to all my loyal subscribers: soz it took me a while to get this up, I have moved to a new country and am currently adapting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No trigger warnings but like, 
> 
>  
> 
> **[SPOILER ALERT]**
> 
>  
> 
> Tony gets hurt.  
> The reactor fails.  
> There's no graphic description of well, anything I don't think. One mention of coughing up blood. That's it.

Tony’s reading through the numbers flashing on his HUD as he flies to the battle site, absently processing the info that Clint and Natasha, who were first on the scene since they were already at SHIELD when the alarm sounded, are relaying on the coms.

It’s a fucking mess when he gets there, with Doombots skittering all over the streets surrounding DUMBO, only kept from spreading further by Clint’s arrows creating an impenetrable barrage south of the neighbourhood. Natasha is right in the thick of it, a blur of speed and agility as she moves from bot to bot, taking them down with her Widow’s bites.

As he nears what appears to be the epicentre of the fight, Tony sees Bucky taking position on a low rooftop facing east, filling in the blind spot left by Clint’s southward position, low enough that he can jump off and join the fray should his hand-to-hand skills become more valuable than sniper shots.

Thor is still blocking access to the bridge, so the bots are well and cornered.

Steve has joined in with Natasha by now, so Tony can’t really shoot it all to hell. Boring.

He lands not far from them, and starts neutralizing bots with his repulsors, hearing Natasha grunt appreciatively when he knocks several off course at once, his blast going straight through the first one and hitting those standing behind.

The bots themselves aren’t hard to defeat, and it’s only the sheer number of them that are still pouring out of the sewers that makes this fight even remotely challenging. Blasting those piles of junk away is so repetitive. BO-RING.

“I feel almost insulted that we have to fight off these failures of engineering. Seriously, someone needs to tell Doom that he should diversify, start thinking mechanical rather than, well, just plain crazy.”

“Chatter.” Steve’s voice sounds exasperated, but like he knows it’s a lost cause to try and get to Tony to behave like a soldier. It somehow pisses Tony off while simultaneously giving him ungodly amounts of glee.

“So what are you saying Iron Man, planning on offering him your services? I’m pretty sure it’s against SHIELD regulations to join the dark side of the Force.”

A Star Wars reference. Tony has never been so proud. Only JARVIS sassing him can make him feel as fuzzy inside as Bucky throwing pop culture back in his face.

“It’s a good thing I’m not a SHIELD agent then, isn’t it?” He winks as he says this, but the effect is lost on the others since he’s, you know, wearing a helmet and stuff.

Clint joins the conversation then. “Am I the only one who’s worried now, because I’m not 100% sure that Stark is joking?”

“I’m just saying, it would be nice for once to be taken seriously, and given something to fight that’s slightly better than a heaping pile of metal shit. Like, what’s the point of building a suit of armour that could revolutionize - if not privatize - world peace if I’m still up against robots I could have built when I was eight?”

“No one’s ever taken the time to explain the concept of humility to you, Iron Man, have they?” Bucky sounds incredibly amused - entertained, actually - as he says this, like he wouldn’t expect Tony to be humble even if he knew what it was supposed to sound like.

“It’s not bragging if it’s true.”

Tony knows that he’s in trouble, because Bucky and him have been snarking back and forth for a while now, and it’s making him _feel_ things.

It had been slow going at first, with tentative attempts to reach out made on Bucky’s part after Tony had given the two super-soldiers the tapes of Peggy and started working on his arm. Eventually though, they had become comfortable around each other, and now Tony can’t seem the remember where the line between friendly banter and actual flirting is supposed to be anymore. Add that to his still seriously unresolved feelings towards - yes, _towards_ , not _for_ , goddamnit, he’s an adult, not a crushing teenager, he’s got a handle on things - Steve and he’s been kind of at a loss with how to act towards them lately.

Sometimes, one of them will look at him and he won’t be able to help but wonder. You know. Sex? People want to have with Tony Stark, he is physically delectable. Right? That's what people say, anyway.

He knows there’s nothing romantic on their side of the equation though. They have each other and they’re, you know, so far out of his league he might as well be playing little league and insulting the Dodgers on a daily basis for all that he has a shot with them, so he’s not entertaining unrealistic expectations or anything. 

But well.

That hasn’t really stopped his brain from imagining how that would go though. Repeatedly. Loudly.

And it’s that much harder to ignore when he actually remembers how it felt to have Steve relinquish control to him. Picturing how Bucky might contrast on Tony’s sheets, all coiled violence and fierce control, is more than Tony can handle. He doesn’t remember when he last jerked off so much in his life. He’s pretty sure it was when he was still a teenager and had just figured out he had as much appreciation for the male form as he did for women.

So yeah, let’s just say that the _moment_ in the kitchen a few days ago, when the two of them basically eye-fucked each other over lunch, felt like a cold shower. Like, somehow, he’d just been robbed of something.

It’s embarrassing really, he’s an adult and he needs to get a handle on things, dammit.

But seeing Steve’s body move confidently and powerfully as he throws his shield, and watching Bucky take aim and squeeze the trigger, mastering his breathing and movements as he keeps eerily still to take shot after shot, well, that's really not helping matters any.

Shit, the middle of a battle _really_ isn’t the time or place to get hard. _Fuck_. He tamps down hard (oh god why) on his arousal and thinks about the probably poor soldering that played a part in creating the bots he’s fighting, hoping that the idea of shoddy engineering will get his erection to go down.

And this is how he knows that he really is a huge nerd, as much as he likes to call himself a genius, because it actually works and he can function once again.

Like he said, embarrassing.

He’s about to brag some more to rile Bucky up - no one ever said he wasn’t a masochist - when a horrific screeching sound wrenches him out of his thoughts, the repetitive motions he’s been going through coming to a stop as he turns just in time to see Natasha go down.

Clint’s voice is the first thing he hears, “NATASHA!”

Steve is already there, moving through the bots standing in his way like they can’t touch him, and it appears that indeed they can’t because he gets to her before any of them can get a shot in. He’s still surrounded though, and it seems that he’s not sure he can move Natasha because all he does is cover her body with his own and hold the shield above his head, like it’s somehow protection enough against the dozen of bots currently gunning for them.

Clint and Bucky are both shooting down as many of them as they can, and Thor has taken to the skies and is coming towards them at great speed, but there are more coming and creating an impenetrable circle around Steve and Nat now. The shots keep pinging off the shield, faster and faster, and Tony knows that Thor will be too slow, that Clint and Bucky won’t be able to take enough of them out before one of them gets lucky and makes it past the shield.

So Tony pulls out his trump card and, before JARVIS can protest or try to talk him out of it, bites out “Override Alpha-Whiskey-Tango-Seven-Two, activate Weapon E.” He says this on his private line, so none of the others know what he’s doing until the EMP discharges and all the bots go down at once.

Every single one of them.

Even the ones that are still below surface, on their way up, because when Tony builds something it’s top of the fucking line and he wasn’t going to let something like the goddamn ground prevent him from truly fucking shit up.

Only problem is, EMPs don’t discriminate between sources of electricity.

His knees hit the street. 

It’s only the shoulder and hip joints locking into place that stop him from crumbling to the ground altogether, suddenly pulled down by the sheer weight of the armour now that the reactor isn’t holding it up. Gravity. Figures.

Tony’s not suicidal though, so even when he set up Weapon E as a last resort, he made sure to tweak the reactor so he’d have a way to reactivate it.

But his fingers are scratching uselessly at the chest plate, and he wants to laugh hysterically because he’d forgotten to account for the weight, and he can’t seem to be able to wrench it off. He’s an engineer, and he’s been bitching about Doom’s low-quality bots for the past hour, and he fucking forgot to factor in the weight.

His vision is blurring. He can’t quite distinguish shapes anymore. 

He doesn’t, he can’t-

There’s someone in front of him suddenly, and a frantic voice is, well, yelling at him really, there’s no other word for it.

“TONY! The reactor! What- it's off, what did you do?”

And there’s a second voice, just as frantic as the first one, in his ear, “Dammit, Stark,” and he takes a second to wonder whether he’s hearing things, because the EMP should have taken the coms out too, before he remembers that he’d installed a backup just in case something like this happened, and it must have kicked in already. Damn, he is _good_.

He can tell that he’s losing focus though, because he can’t process what he’s hearing and it’s because his heart is pumping sluggishly, he knows, and he swears he can feel the shrapnel moving and he’s still trying to get the armour open so he can kick start the reactor but it’s not. coming. off.

The weight disappears suddenly, both from his chest and his head, as plate and helmet are ripped off with brute strength, and Tony is staring into eyes so blue that he wonders whether he somehow teleported to the Arctic and landed on top of a glacier. What the fuck even. His brain.

And the blue eyes look worried, really worried, and someone is asking him what to do, in a voice that’s getting increasingly desperate and Tony wants to reassure them, he does, but he can’t find his mouth and he doesn’t remember how words work.

And he distantly hears his breath stutter, which is a hint that he’s on his way to being truly _fucked_ , so he concentrates and manages to take in a shallow breath. It feels like a victory, but he knows that this must be it, that he’s running out of borrowed time, because he can’t take another one and he can’t move and he can’t get to the button on the side of the reactor.

The blue eyes disappear and he wants to tell them to come back, but then he’s staring into another set of blue eyes, and he knows it’s a different person because those look more aquamarine, and what the fuck is Tony even thinking about right now.

Those eyes don’t look worried, they look furious, and Tony’s jaw is seized in an unforgiving grip and then words are being thrown in his face, words which somehow make it through the fog that’s taken over his mind.

“You listen to me you son of a bitch, you come back to us right now and you tell us what to do. There is no fucking way, not one, that I, that _we_ , are letting you die right here. Do you understand me? So you get your shit together and you fucking talk to me, you hear me? What do we need to do? _Stark_. I am fucking serious, I am going to keep fucking yelling at you and then I will _haunt your ass_ so do us all a favour and stop being such a fucking drama queen right now. We don’t have time for your shit.”

Tony feels a weak chuckle make its way to his lips, come out as a cough, because only Bucky would call him out on his shit at a moment like this. His limbs have stopped working but he still feels a shiver working its way through his body at this.

He looks at Bucky, really _looks_ at him, and somehow his eyes find Steve, too.

Both their faces are pale, their eyes are wide.

They look like they can’t quite compute what’s happening but damn if they’re not gonna find a way to fight it anyways.

Somehow, that gives him strength. If they won’t give up, why should he?

Starks don’t cry, sure, that’s what _Howard said_.

Well here’s what Tony says. Starks don’t _quit_.

So Tony reaches deep down inside of himself, finds the last shred of energy still coursing through his slowly congealing blood, and manages to cough out, in between spitting out mouthfuls of blood, “side… of the r-ctor, small… switch...”

That’s all he can get out before he finally fails at taking in the next breath, and his eyes are closing, but then there are hands roaming around the reactor and he should be scared because usually, all he can think about when someone gets that close is _Obie_.

But he doesn’t have the energy to be that either, so he just waits for it all to end.

The hands find the button on the side though, and press it with a vengeance.

Tony's eyes snap open, as his heart is shocked back into beating when the reactor purrs back to life.

He chokes on the blood in his mouth, somehow figures out a way to take in a rattling breath, followed by a deeper breath, hands coming up to clutch at his chest but tangling with Steve’s instead. Because it was Steve who shocked him back to life, of course it was, and Bucky’s hands are on his face still, looking into his eyes to make sure that he’s back, and he can’t really breathe but he kind of can at the same time.

Yeah. Tony Stark doesn't quit.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Immediate aftermath of Tony's stunt + BRUCE. BRUUUUUUCE.  
> __
> 
> Okay so, apologies for being AWOL, agh. I mentioned before that I started a new job and moved to a new country last month - I've been adapting, and I haven't found any time to work on fic basically. 
> 
> Now you may say: 'whaaaaaaat, but it was all written when you started'. Yeah, it was. But the original draft ended with one hell of a cliffhanger, with no idea when I would/will get to writing the second part. I decided recently that I didn't want to do that to you guys. I want to end the angst and hurt with fluff and comfort, NOT with an open/ambiguous/hopeful ending.
> 
> So basically, I'm working on rewriting the end, and I haven't had time to do that recently, especially because I'm introducing a new character now and I wanted to get him right.
> 
> I also want to tie up some friendship lose ends as I finish this; which takes time to map out.
> 
> So it's still a work in progress-ish.
> 
> In conclusion, bear with me - I will get you there I promise. I would just rather not botch it. <3

A minute later, an eternity later, Tony runs a shaky hand through his hair and moves slightly away from the two super-soldiers, sitting back on his ass as he swallows around the copper taste in his mouth, panting heavily and trying to bully his heart back into a normal rhythm.

He’s barely had a minute to compose himself before he’s hit lightly on the back of the head. He turns, wincing as it puts pressure on his chest, which is feeling like he was just run over by a crash of rhinos. He’s offended - honestly who the _fuck_ hits a man who’s down - but all he gets out is “Hey!” before Natasha (of course) tells him in a voice that allows no argument, “Never do that again Stark, I mean it.”

But Tony kinda knows Natasha now, and he hears the thanks in her voice, so all he does is raise an eyebrow at her, to which she scoffs and turns around, walking away towards Clint. She has a slight limp, but that’s all Tony can see and he can’t help the unmeasurable relief he feels at seeing her be okay. The archer is staring at Tony, a slight smile twisting his lips upwards as he shakes his head but gives him a subtle thumbs-up, getting a smack on the arm for his trouble when Natasha sees it.

Thor is standing a few meters away, his large arms crossed on his even larger chest. “I AM GLAD TO SEE YOU ARE STILL ALIVE, MAN OF IRON. I HAVE LOST TOO MANY FELLOW WARRIORS IN MY LONG YEARS BATTLING EVIL FORCES. I DARE HOPE THAT YOU WILL NOT JOIN THEIR RANKS.”

For Thor, that’s practically a declaration of unending devotion, so Tony swallows and looks away, hoping that no one can see his blush. Because there’s a difference between knowing he makes a valuable addition to the team thanks to his suit, and being told that he’s actually a valuable addition to the team, period.

But looking away from Thor means looking at Steve and Bucky, who are still way too close to him for comfort. All he wants to do is diffuse the situation, to stop _feeling_ , so he clears his throat and jokes, “whelp, that was intense.”

Well that was obviously the wrong thing to say.

Tony sees Steve stiffen, and Bucky clench his jaw. Nope, a world of nope. He’s not staying for _that_. He does not want to get yelled at and told he’s a liability, thank you very much. Time to cut his losses.

He gets up slowly, trying to keep from moving either his chest or head too much, because both of those areas hurt really bad right about now. He glares at the two soldiers, silently daring them to even _try_ to help him stand.

Neither Bucky nor Steve help, although they’re both watching him closely. They know him too well. They know. That physical touch is unwelcome unless he initiates it.

They’ve always respected his boundaries, whatever other bullshit was going on between the three of them, something which Tony has never been more grateful for than right now.

“I’m gonna go ahead and, like, not stay for clean up. And skip debrief. That cool? Cool.”

Tony doesn’t wait for an answer, simply turns around and starts walking away from the two men who will be the fucking death of him. Too soon? Eh.

There are SHIELD agents on the scene now, already starting the clean-up, and Tony is wobbling a bit once he stands up and he knows, he _knows_ , intellectually, that it’s just Steve being mindful of his current state when he tells him to head back to the Tower and stop by medical, but he’s Tony so he can’t help but think that it’s a criticism, a way to tell him that he is the weak link in the chain.

He ignores the burning feeling of self-hatred, and just nods. Walks away.

He’s just too tired to play lonesome hero, and kickstarting the arc reactor really does fucking hurt, so he gets into a SHIELD car that he knows will take him home instead of SHIELD HQ once he reminds the driver that medical doesn't actually know shit about arc reactor technology.

He actually is really quite close to passing out at this point, he probably shouldn’t have gotten up so soon after, well, almost dying. And he doesn't wanna do that in public. Doesn’t want to look weak. What a fucking joke.

Out the corner of his eye, he sees Bucky and Steve staring after him, talking to each other, and he’s not sure he can do this anymore. Pretending not to want them. Not to love them.

Yeah.

They just shocked his heart back to life, for fuck’s sake, and Tony can’t deny any longer that what he feels for the both of them is more than infatuation combined with an unhealthy amount of sexual attraction. Shit. Nothing ever prepared him for this. 

He is so fucked. And not in the good way.

He needs to bring in the big guns.

Tony pulls his phone out, hits speed-dial #4, a number he hasn’t dared use in months.

He listens to it ring, tapping his fingers impatiently on his thigh, eyes closed, breathing forcefully even, chest tingling.

A voice at the end of the line.

“Tony? What’s wrong?”

 _Fuck_ he’s missed him.

“Hey Brucie. Vacation’s done. I’m coming over.”

\---

“Door’s open,” is what Tony hears from inside the cabin once he’s out of the armour.

Bruce must have heard the sound of the repulsors dying down.

“You don’t see me for a couple of months and this is the welcome I get? I’m hurt, Brucie-bear, I really am. I could be dying for all you know.” Tony says as he walks in the door.

Bruce swivels around his desk chair and pins him with an unimpressed look. “That’s never been funny, Tony.”

Tony shrugs self-deprecatingly, drinking Bruce in. “I’m an asshole, you know this. _Everyone_ knows this, actually.” He shuffles, looks down at the floor. “Any chance you still give assholes a hug when you see them?”

He hears movement and looks back up. Bruce is smiling now. A tiny, shy smile. He puts the pencil he’s been holding down on his desk before getting up and spreading his arms.

“Yeah, there’s a chance. Come here you dick.”

Tony doesn’t run into Bruce’s arms. No he does not. He walks at a slow and steady pace towards his best friend, whom he hasn’t seen in months, hasn’t _talked to_ in months, because he’s been doing the mature adult thing and hasn’t sought him out.

But, fuck, right now, he can’t for the life of remember why he decided to respect Brucie’s decision. Because Jesus does it feel good to be hugged by him again.

And Brucie is holding on to him just as tightly, in a show of strength that is neither purely Dr. Banner nor purely Hulk, just Tony’s friend Bruce.

Tony breathes in and out a few times, trying to get his raging emotions under control lest he do something humiliating like _cry_. Bruce understands, lets Tony use his shoulder as a headrest until he feels strong enough to stand up on his own again.

And because he’s the fucking best, Bruce doesn’t comment on Tony surreptitiously wiping his eyes when he finally takes a look around the - well, to be honest, he’s not sure what word he should be using to describe the space and do it justice - shack (?) that Brucie’s been slumming it in for the last few months.

“Seriously? I give you a lab and you run away to live in this? If you wanted subpar accommodation, all you had to do was ask, you know.”

Bruce shakes his head and heads towards what Tony guess is a cooler of some sort, taking out two plastic cups holding a concoction that does not look like it should be drunk by humans. Seriously, DUM-E’s made smoothies that looked safer for consumption than this.

He doesn’t respond to Tony’s jab, because Bruce has always been the better man.

He puts one of the cups down on the desk, gesturing to it and waiting for Tony to walk up and take it, before saying, “Steve called.”

Sneaky bastard. He wanted Tony to have his hands full when he said that so he could see the drink slosh as Tony barely restrains a full body flinch. Collect data. What a nerd.

“And?”

Bruce shrugs, takes a sip of his own drink, goes to sit down on the bed. “He said the last battle was rough on you.”

Tony chuckles bitterly. What a fucking understatement. “Yeah. We could have used the Hulk on this one.”

Bruce doesn’t rise to the bait, he never does. “You know why I had to get away Tony.”

“Yeah.”

Because Tony does. He understands what it’s like to feel like you have the blood of innocents staining your hands. Except he’s never had the luxury of running away to lick his wounds in peace. He stops himself with a shake of his head. That’s not fair to Bruce. 

His friend is watching him silently, probably aware of what’s going on in the engineer’s head.

Tony gives him an apologetic smile and goes to sit down beside him. He gives Bruce a friendly shoulder nudge, finally trying his own drink and regretting it immediately.

He chokes before swallowing, looking at the drink in disgust. “What the fuck is in this, are you trying to kill me?”

Bruce chuckles, shaking his head at Tony’s antics. Tony feels warmth at his ability to still get his friend to laugh. Whatever else he may be a failure at, he can still be good for Brucie.

Silence falls, but it’s not uncomfortable. Tony takes another look at the shack, noticing the scientific papers piled on the desk, the news clippings pinned to the wall above the workstation. He knows Bruce’s been keeping track of them, ready to come home if they ever really needed him.

He starts to fidget. Bruce isn’t looking at him, not directly, but he knows the scientist is waiting him out. And Tony Stark has never been one for patience, they both know he’ll break first.

To stall for time, he takes another drink. Nope, still as bad as the first. God, he wishes it was alcohol. He gingerly puts the cup down on the floor, placing his hands on his knees when he rises back up, knowing he’s hunched over defensively but not being able to do anything about it. He knew what he was in for when he came here.

Bruce is content to wait until he speaks, he knows. He sighs, taps his fingers against the reactor.

“You said Steve called?”

“Mhm. He sounded worried about you. Said you’d gone AWOL after the battle and figured you might come here.”

“You tell him I was?”

“Told him you’d called. Didn’t confirm anything else.”

Despite everything he’s feeling, Tony smiles. He’d forgotten how it felt to have Bruce in his corner. Yeah, Pep and Rhodey always have his back, but they’re not Avengers. They can’t give him the same sense of security regarding his teammates that Bruce can. This assurance that whatever may happen, he’ll never stand alone against his team. He’ll never be left out in the cold.

“I could hear Barnes in the background, asking Steve to tell him what I said. That was interesting.”

As neutral as Bruce’s voice sounds right now, Tony knows he’s in for it.

“Go ahead Bruce. You can ask.”

“What’s going on between the three of you?”

Well, never let it be said that Bruce doesn’t go straight for the jugular when he wants to. For all of his shy and sweet scientist demeanor, he’s a hell of a genius too and he’s not one to smooth away the angles when Tony needs to be called out on his shit.

“That is the million dollar question.”

Bruce just looks back at him, unimpressed.

Tony breathes out through his nose, looks away. “No seriously, hell if I know. They’ve been, I don’t know, friendly lately, I guess?”

“The two of them.”

“Yeah, Steve’s made me food and Bucky, well, I mean I’ve been working on his arm.” Tony swallows. “He, uh, talked to Pepper and Rhodey and made an impression, apparently. They told me he was good people, and they wouldn’t kill him just yet. So.”

Bruce raises an eyebrow at that, having himself been on the end of Tony’s friends’ overprotective freakouts, back when the two of them were working on projects for days on end with no sleep and little food.

Tony knows what it takes to get them to back off. It takes giving a shit about Tony. And, well, he can’t quite picture Bucky doing so in his mind.

“I’m not gonna tell you to stop thinking what you’re thinking right now. That’s not what you’re here for.”

Tony rolls his eyes, goes on the offensive because he’s feeling _so raw_ , “What am I here for then, oh fearless one?”

“Do you love them?”

Tony deflates. Fuck. 

His lack of answer is enough for Bruce, who hums thoughtfully, finishing his drink with an obnoxious slurping noise.

And that’s it, Tony’s a goner. He snorts-chuckles and suddenly he can’t stop laughing. He’s about to turn forty-four for God’s sake. He’s a middle-aged man who is having a love crisis. Oh god. Well, if he needed any more proof that he is not, in fact, his father, this must be it.

Bruce is smiling at him indulgently as he loses his marbles all over the insalubrious, tiny shack in the middle of nowhere. He can’t quite believe what his life has come to.

As he catches his breath, having finally gotten his laughter under control, he wipes the tears from his eyes and says, voice hoarse, “Yeah. God help me, but I love them.” He drops his head in his hands, voice muffled by his fingers, “What the fuck am I going to do Bruce?”

“Well, I would advise communication, but I _do_ know you so I’m not going to hold my breath for that.”

“Obviously. What the hell would I even say to them anyways? Hey so I know you guys like defeated fucking _Time_ in your quest to get back to each other and be happy together and that’s really fucking great. Small thing though, just wanted to let you know that I’m in love with both you and sometimes it fucking kills me to see you guys around. You don’t need to move out or anything, and I won’t let this affect the team, but I just thought you should know. Toodles!”

“Toodles?”

Tony shakes his head, hands flying as he speaks, “You’re not focusing on the important part Brucie, there’s no way I can say any of that to them. What good would it do any ways? Get them to look at me with,” Tony shudders, " _pity_ in their eyes for months? Walk on eggshells around me? Fuck that.”

“What if they love you, too?”

Tony already has his mouth open for a scathing reply when Bruce’s words catch up to him. His jaw clamps shut and he swivels his head, eyes wide as he stares at Bruce in disbelief. “Huh?”

“I said, what if they love you?”

“What the fuck are you on about Bruce.”

“They did sound pretty worried over the phone Tony. Steve did, really, and I’m pretty sure Bucky was as well.”

Tony shakes his head, he knows it’s not like this. “Don’t say shit like that man, I’ve got heart problems you know.”

“I’m just saying-”

“Well don’t. I don’t need this shit, okay?” Tony’s voice is sharp, he can hear it, but he can’t help himself. This _hurts_ , “There’s not point lucid dreaming about shit that’s never going to happen. They called cause they were worried about Iron Man. They’d be down a flyer if I went AWOL and that would leave the team open for attack.”

Bruce glares at him then, “First of all, that’s bullshit and you know it. Everyone on this team cares about more than Iron Man. Stop insulting us by saying otherwise.”

Tony looks away, guilt churning in his gut because he knows they do, even though it’s hard to believe on the best of days.

“Secondly, you might want to give them a little credit. You’re their friend, if nothing else, and you almost died in the last battle. Of course they want to keep tabs on you to make sure you’re alright.”

“If you’re gonna keep saying shit like that, I don’t think I need to be here for this,” Tony says as he starts to rise, intent on getting the hell out of there before he’s forced to confront his feelings. What was he thinking, going to Bruce.

“Sit your ass down.”

Tony makes a pitiful noise as he sits back down on the bed. Bruce sounds pissed now, and that never bodes well for him.

“Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to stay here a couple days, we’re going to make some things go BOOM. We won’t talk about your feelings, and when you’re done being a dumbass you can go home and hide in your workshop sulking like the child you are. But I swear if I hear any of the shit you just sprouted come out of your mouth again, I’ll call them.”

“Look, Bruce, that’s really not necessary, they saw me walk away and I was fine, they really don’t need-”

“Oh I’m not talking about Steve and Bucky now. I’ll call Pepper and Rhodes.”

Well fuck. Now that’s playing dirty.

Tony whines and collapses onto his back, staring at the cracks in the ceiling to avoid the love he’s feeling for Bruce becoming visible on his face. “That’s just not fair,” he complains aloud.

“Tough luck. Now, when’s the last time you had food?”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because you guys have been incredibly patient, you get two, yes I said TWO, chapters today :)
> 
> This one has Steve and Bucky finally getting their heads out their asses with regards to Tony. Now, they don't exactly come up with a gameplan before getting involved in, mhm let's call it, _other_ activities(...), so we'll see how well that works out for them ;)
> 
> As always, please feed my soul with comments. Thank you for staying loyal <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Sex. In this chapter.
> 
> If that doesn't do it for you, just stop reading when you get to Bucky saying "take me to bed Stevie," and you're golden :)
> 
> An FYI: there's implicit mentions of consent and Steve & Bucky basically have raunchy, healthy, loving sex.

It’s been three days since they fought the Doombots, and Tony still hasn’t come back. Bruce left a message to let them know Tony was safe and cared for but still, Steve knows he won’t be able to let it go til he sees it for himself.

And it feels too much like Tony ran away. From him. From them.

By unspoken agreement, Bucky and Steve have been spending most of their time in the common area, hoping to be there to catch the genius when he inevitably returns.

They should have remembered that, when Tony does run away, he’s damn good at it. Steve’s been patient, acknowledging that Tony may need time to get his bearings back after his latest self-sacrificial - no matter what the engineer says about having had a backup in place, he’d cut it too darn close for Steve to consider it anything else - stunt but now he’s worried and it’s taking all of his self-control not to pick up the phone and tell him to come home himself. He knows Bucky isn’t doing much better, he can feel the tension running through the other man sitting next to him on the couch.

They’re both pretending to be busy, Bucky disdainfully scoffing his way through The Old Man and the Sea with a really unimpressed expression on his face and Steve sketching the street from their childhood, hoping that this is one drawing Tony won’t appear in.

When Steve sighs loudly for what must be the third time in the last five minutes, Bucky slaps his book closed and says “Alright Rogers, enough is enough.”

Steve cringes and refuses to lift his head, concentrating on the sleek lines of the building he’d grown up in, but Bucky isn’t taking his shit.

“Put the fucking pencil down Stevie, I mean it.”

Well. Looks like it’s time for that conversation they’ve been pretending they don’t need to have. No matter what anyone else says, Bucky has always been the braver one.

So he puts his sketch away and looks at Bucky, cause he can’t for the life of him figure out what to say first.

“I’m just as annoyed with Tony as you punk, but sighing about it all on your lonesome isn’t gonna do shit about it.”

He sneers, “You think I don’t know that?” And it’s not fair that Steve is taking out his frustration on Bucky, he knows that, but he can’t stop himself because Tony isn’t fucking here. Bucky doesn’t take the bait though, he knows Steve too well. He just raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms, waiting him out.

Steve huffs. “What do you want me to say? We can’t exactly go out there and force him to come home.”

“Right. So what are you gonna do until then? Sulk and pretend like you and I don’t know exactly what’s got you down in the dumps?"

Bucky says this challengingly, like he’s expecting Steve to argue but there’s no point, because they do both know where Steve stands on Tony, even though they’ve done a pretty good job of avoiding the subject until now.

Steve stays silent, mind reeling. He knows they need to talk about this but he has no idea what to say, no idea where he stands.

“You love him Stevie, there’s no point lying ‘bout it no more.”

Steve opens his mouth, denial on his lips, but finds he can’t the words. Can’t lie to Bucky.

“Buck, you-”

“I know, punk, I remember. You said I was all you ever needed.” Bucky’s voice is soft now, talking to Steve as he would a spooked animal. “I just don’t think I’m all you ever wanted.”

“I want to be with you.”

“You think I don’t know that? I thought I’d made it clear that you’re not getting rid of me, not unless you’re the one who tells me to go.”

“I won’t _ever_ -”

“I _know_ ,” Bucky smiles at him softly as he says this, “but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have feelings for Tony, sweetheart.”

Before he has the chance to respond, Bucky keeps talking, his voice taking on a lower pitch like he isn’t sure he’s allowed to say what comes next. “And I’ve gotta be honest with you, I’ve, uh, I’ve kinda started having feelings for Tony too.”

Bucky looks up shyly as he says this and Steve should be surprised but he really isn’t because, even though he buried it under mountains of denial, he has in fact noticed the way that Bucky started hovering over Tony since the two of them got to spending quality time together once Tony began working on his new arm.

He’s confused though, Bucky just said he wasn’t going anywhere but then what does this mean? “So what are you saying?”

Bucky chews on his lip, looking at Steve with a thoughtful look in his eyes. “Look, you and I both clearly _like_ Tony, and have thought 'bout being with him. Like I said, I’m not letting you go, but why couldn’t we, I don’t know, bring Tony in with us?”

Steve feels his eyebrows shoot up at that. “You mean,” he swallows, because even as he’s saying this, images rise unbidden in his mind, “the three of us together?”

“Yeah.” And Bucky’s eyes are a bit darker now, like he knows what’s going through Steve’s head, and he’s thinking about it, too.

“I, uh, I mean, if you think that’s possible I wouldn’t be, uhm, opposed to it, I guess.” Bucky just stares at him and Steve blushes, “Yeah okay I would really like it, actually.”

Bucky smiles satisfiedly at this, “’s what I thought. Now we just have to convince Stark. Should be a walk in the park right?” And it’s Bucky, so he winks as he says this, which makes Steve giggle before he can stop himself. They both know how easy it is to talk to Tony about, well, anything that’s not science or weapons for the team. He shakes his head, shoving at Bucky’s shoulder as he mutters under his breath, “yeah, real easy, is what this is gonna be.”

He looks up at Bucky, who’s staring at him with a smile on his lips and, for the first time in weeks, he feels hopeful when he thinks about Tony.

And then Bucky says, softly, “Now that we’ve got that squared away, take me to bed Stevie.”

It’s the words that Steve has been waiting to hear and he doesn’t hesitate as he gets up and holds his hand out to Bucky, pulling him away from the common room and back to their suite.

As soon as the door clicks shut softly behind them, he spins around and pins Bucky against it, catching his mouth in a searing kiss. This, he thinks, this is what he’s been missing since he woke up from the ice. Yeah, they’ve been kissing, but it’s been with the tacit agreement that they wouldn’t go any further.

He can feel something unfurl in his chest as Bucky responds in kind. And he’s allowed to touch now so he lowers his hands until he has a handful of Bucky’s ass, and the other man’s moan in his mouth lights his blood on fire.

Bucky gives as good as he gets, his hand creeping down Steve’s chest until he’s palming him through his pants, and Steve can’t help the way his hips grind down into it. He should be embarrassed by his own broken whimper, but it’s all he can do to tear his mouth away from Bucky’s and mutter “Bed. Bed now.”

Bucky chuckles. “I’d forgotten how easy it was to get your motor running, Rogers. I can’t wait to see how desperate Stark and I can get you if we work together."

Steve shudders at the words, concentrating on staying in control so he doesn’t blow his load off right there and then at the mental image of Tony naked on the bed, gesturing at him to come hither all the while having Bucky lap at his throat from behind him.

“Yeah, ‘ts what I thought. Now come on, show me what you can do.”

Steve's never been a man to resist a challenge. He lifts Bucky up, wrapping his legs around his waist, and makes his way to Bucky’s room, all the while peppering his neck with kisses, sucking at the hollow of his throat.

Bucky throws his head back, looks at Steve from under his lashes once he’s laid out on the bed.

And he holds Steve’s eyes as he drifts his own hand across his chest, lower, lower, until he’s undoing the button of his pants and reaching inside his own underwear, eyes fluttering shut as he takes himself in hand.

Steve breathes out harshly. He’s pretty sure he’s never been so turned on in his life. His voice sounds rough even to his own ears as he commands, “Show me.”

And it’s a test, because he needs to know how far he can go with Bucky, whether he can _tell_ him to do certain things in bed, and Bucky knows it, because he looks straight at Steve and smiles, a smile that says ‘it’s okay,’ as he lifts his hips off the bed and takes his pants and underwear off in one swift move. And _damn_ , Steve had forgotten how unbelievably sexy Bucky could be in bed.

Steve is helpless, standing at the foot of the bed and staring with his mouth slightly open as Bucky takes his shirt off, too, and reaches down to grasp his cock again, giving it one rough stroke. And Steve is really happy that they’ve also done some shirtless making out, and that they’ve addressed the fact that Steve finds everything about Bucky incredibly hot, including the scars on his shoulder, because he doesn’t think he would be able to reassure him now with the number of brain cells he’s got left.

Bucky keeps stroking himself as he raises one eyebrow at Steve, “You gonna stand there and stare all day, or you gonna join me?”

It takes a handful of seconds for Steve to undress himself, Bucky’s eyes darkening as he takes in his naked form, and then he’s on the mattress, batting Bucky’s hand away and kneeling at the foot of the bed, reaching down to take him in his mouth. It feels like coming home.

Bucky keens above him, and he uses every trick he remembers from the moments they stole together during the war, when they had to make it quick and dirty, because he wants to take the edge off before he takes his time undoing Bucky. He wants to take him apart after this, remind him that Steve is always going to be there to piece him back together.

He swirls his tongue, gives a barely there scrape of his teeth, hollows his cheeks, and it doesn’t take long before Bucky’s thighs are shaking around his head, and then there are fingers in his hair, trying to tug him away, but he stubbornly takes him deeper, works the muscles of his throat, and that’s it, Bucky’s coming, and Steve’s swallowing around his dick like he’s been starved for seventy years.

He can hear Bucky struggling to catch his breath, hands still in his hair, and it’s all he needs really, because he only has to rut against the mattress a couple times before he’s coming all over the bed.

Bucky laughs weakly, and tugs him back up, kissing him roughly, tasting himself in his mouth, claiming him. “Fuck Stevie, you’re gonna be the death of me.”

Steve feels emboldened by the love and the lust he can see in Bucky’s eyes.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet, jerk.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AND WE'RE DONE!
> 
> OH MY GOD WHAT.
> 
> IT'S DONE.
> 
> So, obviously, I want to take this opportunity to thank ALL OF YOU who have stood by me throughout this difficult journey, supported me with your kudos, fed my soul with your comments.
> 
> This last chapter was a long time coming and I can only hope that you like it. It's been really tough finding a place where I felt comfortable ~ending~ the story, and I am appreciative of your patience.
> 
> I know that this up-date/end-date (woot making up new words) doesn't address all the issues that I raised throughout the fic, so I feel bound to point out that I've envisioned this as a series, and there will definitely be more in the future although I cannot give you a timeline on that.
> 
> In the meantime though, let's imagine our three emotionally constipated protagonists enjoy the beginning of a relationship, with all the potential and happy firsts that come with it.
> 
> Thank you again, so very much, and I shall be stalking all of you and your own works/bookmarks as I come down the high that is finishing a long fic.
> 
> TOODLES GUYS.
> 
> So much love, no, really.
> 
> HEARTS.

It’s a long time before either of them make it off the bed, and Bucky hasn’t felt this pleasurably sore in seventy years, so it’s all he can do to stop himself from aggressively cuddling up to Steve when the other man gets up and jumps in the shower. He closes his eyes and smiles, remembering the look on Steve’s face when he’d come, buried deep inside of him like he belonged there and never wanted to leave. He feels good.

He dozes off while Steve showers, and decides that he likes being woken up by Steve kissing him lightly and smiling at him softly when he opens his eyes.

“I’m starving, wanna go make some food?”

Steve’s words are enough to make Bucky’s stomach rumble, and he’s smiling sheepishly as Steve laughs at him. It’s such a carefree, happy sound, that Bucky can’t help but blush in response. He shakes his head and shoves Steve lightly, telling him to go get started on food while he showers.

When he gets out, Steve isn’t in their kitchen, so he figures he must have gone back to the common area to resume waiting Tony out. He smells the food before he actually makes it to the kitchen, and comes up behind Steve, wrapping his arms around him and looking down to the stove to see that Steve is making an omelette. He laughs into Steve’s shoulder, remembering all the times they’d cooked that as a post-sex meal when they were younger.

He presses a light kiss to the side of Steve’s neck, delighted by the blush that appears, and draws away to set the table. Just as they’re about to start eating, Tony stumbles into the kitchen, looking like he hasn’t slept in days. Bucky sighs internally, because that’s probably the case. He’s heard about what it was like before Bruce left, about how the two scientists could spend days together huddled around an experiment, neither willing to stop working as long as the other one was still standing. He can only guess at the amount of food that must have been consumed by the two geniuses in the last couple of days.

Steve must be thinking along the same lines, because he calls out to the engineer, “There’s some food left in the pan, help yourself.”

Tony stops at the words and turns around, blinking owlishly at the two of them like he hadn’t noticed they were in the kitchen. He probably hadn’t even expected anyone to be awake and about. It’s late for the two of them, almost 1 in the morning. They’re not usually up at this hour.

It apparently takes him a few seconds to process Steve’s words, but then a hesitant look comes upon his face, before he seems to come to a decision and nods to himself, turning back to the stove and helping himself to the leftover food. His movements still have a hesitant quality to them as he comes to sit at the table though, and he leaves a few chairs between himself and Steve, sitting across the table from Bucky.

Bucky looks over to Steve, who’s already looking at him with a question in his eyes. Bucky hesitates, knowing that Tony must be about as sleep-deprived as he gets right now, but figures that it’s their best shot to actually talk to him before he skulks away to the workshop and they don’t see him again for a few days so he nods, and gets up. He’ll wait in the living room until they’re done. Whatever his own feelings for the engineer, he knows it’s gotta be Steve who takes this up with him first.

As he walks out, he notes that Tony isn’t looking at either of them, staring off into the distance as he munches mechanically on the food, like he isn’t even tasting what he’s eating.

His eyes snap to Steve straight away when he speaks though, “Tony. Do you have a minute? We need to talk.”

Because he was looking at him, Bucky sees the exact moment Tony processes the words and shuts down. He sighs internally, Steve’s got an uphill battle ahead.

\---

“Look, Rogers, can this wait? I literally just got in the door. I’d rather do this another time, if it’s all the same to you.”

Tony looks tired, Steve can’t help but notice. Not physically tired, but mentally exhausted. It’s more than exhaustion, even. Tony looks drained.

Steve can’t stand it.

“Just take a seat. This is important.”

Tony takes a look at Steve’s face and must come to the conclusion that Steve is serious because he grimaces and gingerly sits down at the table, placing it between the two of them.

Steve doesn’t like it. Neither the fact that he somehow feels he needs to protect himself from Steve, nor that he looks like he’s still hurting days after the battle.

“Does your chest still hurt? Did you go see-”

Tony waves his concern away, making Steve’s gut tighten in response. Is he not allowed to be worried about Tony’s health, his well-being, his fucking life?

“Let’s not do this. I’m fine, don’t worry about it.” Steve scoffs and crosses his arms. If he had a penny for every time Tony said that and lied, he’d be - well by the future’s standards, he’d have some savings. He wouldn’t be a rich man by any shot, but still. Point made.

Tony runs his hands over his face, sighs and looks down at the table. “Just get it over with, Cap. The sooner you’re done putting me through the wringer, the sooner I can get back to my lab and do something about it.”

That - that doesn’t sound right. Put him through the wringer? Steve shakes his head.

“Tony, no, I just want to clear some things up.”

“Oh, this is gonna be good.” Tony crosses his arms, tilts his chin up.

Steve doesn’t even know where to begin. He lays his palms flat on the table.

“Look, I know that bringing Bucky in made things complicated.”

Tony cocks an eyebrow, stares at him. Steve’s not really sure where to go from there.

“I’m not really good at this.” He chuckles. It sounds bitter, even to his own ears. And Tony, well, Tony just keeps looking at him.

“I just, look, I just wanted to say that…” Steve chokes up, “that night meant something to me.”

“Oh _now _we’re going to talk about that? Really Rogers?” Tony uncrosses his arms, rubs at his forehead. Looks at the table. Looks back up at Steve. Crosses his arms again. “Well, okay let’s hear it then.”__

____

____

Tony’s not running away. That has to mean something, right?

So Steve decides to go for broke. Who knows how many chances he’s going to get with that man.

“The last battle Tony, when you fell…” Steve closes his eyes. “It felt familiar. Too familiar.”

The silence is deafening, Steve can hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. He never realized how much courage it took to love someone you weren’t sure loved you back.

“You see, I’ve seen someone I love fall before.”

He opens his eyes, looks across the table. Tony has gone pale, his mouth is hanging slightly open.

He gives him a half-smile. “Yeah." God, could he be any less eloquent? "I love you Tony. I know I haven’t been the best at showing it and, truth be told, I love Bucky, too. I just, I didn’t think I could love two people at once. That’s why I’ve been fighting it. Because, you see, well, Bucky’s my life. He’s my past, he’s my present.”

Tony’s eyes shift away, but Steve won’t let him leave this time.

“But you, Tony, you’re my present too. You’ve been my lifeline for these past two years. And I’ve come to realize, you’re my future, too. And I’d like to be yours, if you’d let me.”

Steve figures that’s a good opening statement. He waits for Tony to say something, anything.

But Tony is frozen, gaping at him openly now.

And then he starts laughing, this horrible broken sound, tears leaking out of his eyes. He’s shaking his head, too, frantically. He scrambles back in his chair, gets up, stumbles. Grabs onto the table and pulls himself straight. Won’t look at Steve as he says, “Nope. A world of nope.”

And then Tony, well, Tony walks out.

Shit. Steve could probably have handled that better.

\---

Tony’s looking at the floor as he runs out, no, walks out of the kitchen. Because Steve, well, Steve isn’t making sense right now.

What the hell is he on about? He loves Tony? What? Where the hell is this coming from?

Tony has made peace with what he feels, goddamn it.

He doesn’t need the two super soldiers playing with his head right now.

He is fine, damn it. He’ll move on. He did after Pepper. He’s moved on from _alcohol_. Mostly. He can move from them, too.

And it’s gotta be the both of them involved in this, because there’s no way Barnes isn’t in on whatever the fuck this is supposed to be.

Thoughts swirling, anger rising, Tony doesn’t notice the figure walking towards him until he runs into a hard, well-defined chest.

Okay, _definitely_ not the time for that.

He looks up, finds himself staring into the eyes of one James Buchanan Barnes.

And suddenly, he’s angry. Where the fuck do they get off playing him like a fucking fiddle? What is their endgame here? What, their century-long relationship has already gotten boring enough for them to wanna play games?

So he jabs his finger in Bucky’s chest, sneers “I don’t know what the fuck is your problem, yours and wonder twin’s over there, but it stops _now_.”

But Bucky just grabs onto his finger, takes his hand and holds onto it. And he looks back at Tony, completely fucking serene or some shit, and just says:

“Doll, I don’t think you’re getting it. You, me, and Stevie? We could be _phenomenal_.”

And, well, what the fuck can Tony say to that? He doesn't even know what's _going on_ here. Never let it be said that Tony Stark cannot be rendered speechless.

Just as he’s about to make another excuse, find another escape route, he feels another body come up behind him, hands hovering above his waist, breaths soft at his ear.

Tony can’t help but close his eyes, he feels so _surrounded_. He could almost feel safe.

“Damn Stevie, you really are awful at this.”

“I told ya Buck, why in the hell did you let me try this on my own in the first place?”

“Cause he needed to hear it from you first. And now it’s my turn.”

Strong fingers grab at his chin, tilt his head up.

“Look at me doll.”

Tony reluctantly opens his eyes, reluctantly bates his breath.

“Now, Stevie here’s probably given you some horribly cheesy speech that had you running for the hills, but I won’t be outdone by this punk so just look at me, just _look at me_.

“I thought I’d found everything I could ever want in Steve. Until you came along.

“Stark, you makes the colours brighter, the angles sharper. When I thought I would never feel anything but pain and despair again, Steve gave me love but you, Tony, you gave me life.”

And then Bucky leans in to kiss him, pressing his lips gently to Tony’s while his hand curls up, skimming over his chin and wrapping around his neck.

And Tony’s brain, well, it simply just short-circuits and all of a sudden it’s _silent_ in his head.

Tony can’t remember the last time in his life that his thoughts went so still, so quiet. It's _glorious_.

So he responds, tentatively, feels Bucky’s smile shape along his lips as they kiss. And for all the earth-shattering discoveries he’s made in the lab, he’s never felt a moment with so much potential as this feels.

Bucky pulls back eventually.

Tony licks his lips, opens his mouth so as to say - God, what is he even going to say - something, _anything_ , but before he can, strong hands grasp at his waist and turn him around and now it’s Steve who’s kissing him. Kissing him like he never thought he’d get another chance, like he’s scared this is the last time, like he can’t get enough.

And Tony breathes him in like he hasn’t been getting nearly enough oxygen into his lungs.

When Tony opens his eyes eventually, he finds Bucky and Steve looking at him, satisfied yet wary, confident yet fragile.

“This is a terrible mistake.”

Their faces fall.

“You have no idea what you’re in for.”

And watching that sentence undo them, watching the blinding smiles that break out, watching that turn into smirks as they tackle him down to the plushy carpet he had the wonderful idea to order all those months ago when he was trying to avoid the call of whiskey, Tony can't help but wonder if maybe he’s the one who has no idea what he’s in for.


End file.
